NerdOver9000's page

I'll throw my hat in for the hybrid book series too. I've been beating the drum for a while for a time traveling adventure similar to Chrono Trigger, though that would might require a modern setting as well to really nail, or at least a modern equipment book...

I'd be okay with buying the ability to start higher with achievement points, even because you have to run or play Pathfinder to get them. I routinely start off my characters at higher levels because of GM chronicles. For a ton of folks, that wouldn't be an issue. But for a public game day, that's where you'll have problems. It's the brand new player who wants to try the cool blog build or someone who's trying "basically 5e" for the first time that worries me. The only way I can see to screen for "I have a solid understanding of the rules of the game" is making it achievement point gated. Even then, you'll have issues, just not as many, I don't think.

I know this isn't probably what you're referring to, but I think I like the idea of having certain achievement point gates for character building. When you start out players can build a level one character, and if you get a certain number of lifetime achievement points earned you have the option to build a character at first or second level. At another threshold you get the option to build first through third level, and so forth. After they're built, characters continue to progress with XP normally.

This gives an options for experienced players to skip the low level grind only after they prove they've got the systems knowledge to do it, and doubly rewards GMs because they're probably (hopefully) much more familiar with the system than players are.

Not sure how it would work in practice, but I know it can be a drag grinding through those first few levels. It would also be helpful if we are having a narrower band to let experienced players build low level (but not first level) characters to fit into a particular level band.

Not sure how this would work in practice, but I like the idea.

You're amazing for all the work you do! I've enjoyed the journey here and wish you the best going forward, even if we won't see you as much here.

You’re really not getting it.

I’d very likely do different adjustments depending on the campaign, the other parts of the character (especially class) and even the player.

For me, the current guidelines are just about perfect. I would personally just about ignore (I’d glance at them to see if they were good enough to save me time and likely decide they weren’t) any conversion guide built by Paizo. I’d be a little more likely to follow a fan built guide.

So, the value of a guide to me approximates 0. They have already given me what I want.

Before you speak the obvious, I fully realize that others would value the guide. I’d have no problem if Paizo decided it was worth their while to publish said guide but I wouldn’t buy it even if it was some ridiculously low price.

The existence of people like me lowers the value of a guide since it reduces the need. Only Paizo knows if they think it still worth their time.

But your continuing to try to browbeat people into your position is almost certainly counterproductive at this point

Agreed. For most GMs this should be a trivial exercise, and Paizo has already given hints for GMs to watch out for. As much hoopla has been made about the two systems being built on the same engine Starfinder does not have Pathfinder written on the cover or vice versa. Remember, d20 Modern and d20 Star Wars and 3.5 D&D were technically built off the same engine, but had wildly different expectations for characters. Anyone expecting to use one system or feature in the other should expect some conversion work.

I ran a combined game back during the d20 heyday, inspired by Chrono Trigger, which combined those systems and it worked out okay, but it required a lot of on the fly calls in the moment.

If Paizo thinks it's worthwhile, they'll put it out. In the mean time I expect we'll have some of our awesome community writers put out conversion guides as time goes on if there's a need, just like the incredible class guides that are available now. Those guides still won't cover all the edge cases and the GM will have to make decisions on the fly and adjust as needed.

For Society play, I would imagine the best thing to do would be to keep them separated until such time they've had a chance to thoroughly test things, and the boon was probably not thought out very well, but it doesn't mean they're going to open the floodgates going forward.

I wonder, could there be an option to add the Foundry module to the subscription? My issue with the current changes is to keep the subscription and then add the Foundry module is approximately $35, assuming I have the enough gold to keep my discount with the new store it would $51 for the sub and the module. If there was an option to subscribe and get everything for $35ish. I at least would look at doing that.

It doesn't help with those who decide to run it later, but it would at least be something.

I'd be down for this. A foundry & pdf adventure subscription would ease a lot of the issues I'm having with this transition, and I don't think I'm alone in that.

Yep, I'll add in my .02 also. I've recently had to cancel my subscriptions due to not needing the physical product any more...and now having to buy both the pdf and the foundry module make me reconsider things even more. Hopefully there's some new solution soon, or there's some way to at least bundle the foundry module with the pdf...

Indirect sequels can be a lot of fun, but they strike me as hard to do well. The characters in the APs could have done any one of a half dozen or more different things and having to account for all of that...it leads to a bit of dilution. Curtain Call worked well from a readthrough perspective because it is all about the previous AP, but I don't think I would like that as a regular thing.

My personal preference would be to see APs set in specific regions, or around specific themes, without having to be a direct sequel. For instance, let's take a hypothetical AP around a group of PCs being a group of Eagle Knights in service of Andoran, who go around the inner sea poking Cheliax in the eye before finally defeating a corrupt governor and ending their adventure at tenth level. This one could be a bit campy, a bit Saturday Morning Cartoon with a small group and slightly comical villains.

The next AP set in Andoran starts with a war between Cheliax and Andoran, and in the beginning of the AP mention is made that one of the reasons might be the actions of the PCs in the previous AP, but it might be any one of a half dozen reasons as well. So, the players could pick up the second AP as a group of 10th level patriots or mercenaries who come to join Andoran's plight, or they might be the same group of Eagle Knights from before. Tone is darker here, and the stakes are certainly higher. Both stories have a beginning and an ending that could link together, or could be separate.

I'll edit to say that I think this might also be a good place to look at the adventure line, especially with the new anthologies. A short 'bridge' adventure to bring the heroes to Absalom and then a second short bridge adventure to take the heroes from...

Heh, reading the description of the two APs this is not as direct a prediction as I first thought, but it sure has echoes of what wound up being the direction Paizo went.

lotrotk wrote:

it should also be easier to release pawns once more for each AP :)

Sadly, if Erik Mona's recent comments on Reddit are anything to go by, AP pawns will likely remain a thing of the past.

Personally I'm hoping Paizo makes a go of tokens instead of pawns, and that doing so changes the cost structure enough to allow AP token packs to become a thing.

I'll highlight this for my hope as well. I've even played around with making token stickers from foundry tokens. I can extract token images from the foundry sets, print them out on a sheet of sticker paper then cut them out with my co-worker's cricut. From there it's a fairly simple process to stick them on 1" wooden rounds I buy from Amazon, scaling up for larger creatures.

I think it would be dirt cheap for Paizo to make these sticker sheets for APs...after all, they're already making the token art for the foundry release...and market them along with some blank plastic or wood tokens to stick them to. The blank tokens would be able to be used for every AP and the sticker sheets could be bundled in cheaply enough. When your party wraps up the AP just remove the stickers and they're ready for the next AP. Maybe do a 'premium AP' subscription that includes the hardcover and the token sticker sheet sent together.

*shrugs* A guy can hope...

Myself, I'm very excited for the change. Hardcover books tend to hold up a bit better in my experience, so when I want to take a book to a table I think it'll hold up to transport a bit better I think. I'll echo other sentiments that I'm hoping this works out to be a more coherent story vs the monthly installments. When running adventures I always had to spend some time meshing volumes together.

Hopefully this also means that APs are easier to keep in stock. I'm trying to build a complete collection of APs and there are two or three where I'm missing a volume or two. Having them all combined would make collecting a lot easier.

Here's what I'm hoping we MIGHT see in the Remastered Psychic:

1) 3-slots. Seriously. Just... why was it ever 2???
2) Get rid of stupify from Unleashed Psyche. Maybe also extend the duration.
3) Alter Oscillating Wave's Conservation of Energy feature, to just letting you turn fire to cold or cold to fire, without needing to balance it out.
4) Rewrite the Subconscious Mind related feats. Especially the Wandering Reverie one.
5) Okay, this last one is just wishful thinking on my part, but: GIVE PSYCHICS the ability to IGNORE mindless trait when dealing MENTAL DAMAGE!!!

Justnobodyfqwl wrote:

I think that a non-intrusive, minor change to the Psychic that they could make would be in their proficiencies. I think you could add a lot to the Psychic by giving them trained proficiency in all Tech weapons, from Starfinder 2e.

... Hey, no one said we had to submit GOOD ideas.

Fish from Spongebob: "Boo! You stink!"

Playing a psychic at 11th level now I would really LOVE to see 1, 2 and 5. I'm playing a silent whisper psychic and it gets super rough when we face any kind of mindless enemy....

sanwah68 wrote:

Do has anyone seen the promised Starfinder STLs anywhere in the wild? I have looked, but not found

We don't have any pictures, but maybe someone in the community does! We had some here at the show at Gen Con, but they virtually flew off the shelves. ㅠㅠ

Figured those would be popular. Hopefully the STL files are available soon.

My watch has finally ended, thank goodness.

Just fot notification of shipping…of the Pathfinder Society modules. Not the Paizo products I most want to receive at this time. Le sigh.

I know! I got so excited when I saw that email come in. Hopefully soon...

Cutting it to the wire this time. I've been hitting the shipping lottery for the past few months but it seems my luck has ebbed a bit. My watch continues.

That is nice. Now if they would just ship mine.

Right? I've been hitting the shipping lottery the last few months and this one is pulling it to the wire...

We hope these help people who wanted those STLs!!!

I have been asking for this for years! I hope this partnership goes well and the range continues to expand!

I loved your Hopefinder game system, but I'm super excited for the vibes with this one. Can't wait to get my hands on the printed version!

FrontLineFodder wrote:

I like the idea of offering Legendary Loot exclusives personally, and if I dropped out of Legendary tier it would not be the end of the world. This is assuming it is inconsequential items like hero point coins or pins, and not exclusive story lore that only the legends can know.

We don't have any plans to gate new content behind legendary loot, but it's possible you might see ultra-deluxe editions available there. You'll be able to get the current editions normally, though.

-Jim

I'm glad to hear this. Locking content would be rough, but special editions are a good way to handle it.

I think I'm pretty good with this. Quick question, would foundry purchases count toward gold/tiers, or only books/pdfs? Can gold be spent to purchase foundry scenarios?

I got my copy in the mail today and I've been resisting reading through it. The group I'm in is due to fight the final boss on Thursday, and I don't want to get ahead of myself.

I know that this AP was panned for being a long escort quest, but I've had a lot of fun in it. Once we wrap things up this week I'm looking forward to cracking open the original books and the remaster to see the differences and what my GM added to the story.

Tunderpower wrote:

Just putting this for interest sake, but i would be interest in a foundry module for it as all of my current campaigns are run through there.

Thank you for letting us know you'd want it! I'll pass this on!

I'll throw in my interest as well, but I'm a sucker for anything foundry. Being able to choose a level, click and generate a level appropriate item would be super rad for those random treasure chests...especially if it generated the item with all the magical effects already loaded onto it with a nice token and dropped it into a loot actor. May be a bit beyond the scope of just a foundry version of the deck, but a guy can dream.

DawidIzydor wrote:

It'd be super cool to have these maps as a Foundry VTT release with Journal notes pointing to content about each place from the books

The team says this is definitely something they've considered and may consider again depending on how things shake out with other products!

Queue me up as a purchaser for this as well from Foundry. Running a sandbox game in Golarion would be so much easier if we had maps available with preloaded journal entries, especially for the cities. For larger cities I feel like it would help to even have district maps with shops prepopulated that the PCs can visit.

So...I just got a subscriber copy of the .pdf, so I know other people have as well. Has anyone gone through and catalogued the differences from the original?

Glad to know I'm not too far off. I use 2mm chipboard because my mother's cricut can cut it reliably and cleanly, with glossy printable vinyl stickers for the artwork. I pre-cut the chipboard on the cricut, cut the artwork out roughly with scissors, stick the chipboard cutout onto the back of the artwork, and use a razor blade to trim the artwork to fit the chipboard. So far it's worked well and allows me to print off some out of print or custom pawns, but I'd really rather just buy them myself... Not that I get to play in person much anymore, I've moved far more online these days.

I'm excited for Starfinder 2e, especially with rules compatibility. I've said before I'm excited to run a Chrono Trigger style time traveling campaign and it's great that the players can be from different times and still play together well. I'll have to reign in some things from the Starfinder end (early flight for example) but for the most part it makes it so easy to run this style of campaign.

I had a quick request, if anyone is out here listening. I have recently started using Moulinette cloud with a couple of Patreon mapmakers, and it makes generating an encounter so much quicker when I'm running crunched for time, especially with expanded token packs.

I would happily buy map packs that can be loaded in the same manner, be they flip maps/tiles or from existing APs. Walled, hot loadable maps in Foundry are a tremendous luxury when trying to build an encounter quickly.

I would buy this in a heartbeat. The more tokens the better, when it comes to crafting encounters quickly!

Got this one specifically to get the sketch cover and a few maps that I didn't have. Still a great deal, and it's always a good idea to have a spare copy or two of the player cores for the table!

I'm really glad to see a return to a pdf guide for organized play.

Amen to that. Having something to hand to new players and go, "Read this. It'll give you enough info to get started," is something I've been sorely missing. Having a couple of those printed out and bound will be really nice.

I, for one, kind of like this length. One of the things I used to love in pf1e was the sheer number of short adventures that I could fit together to create mini arcs for the heroes, kind of like seasons on a TV show. Having more module plus length adventures to fit together, especially in a sci-fi game where the players can get into their starship and fly anywhere they need to go, works great for the way I would run the game.

Hopefully Paizo does a bit of both. Some longer adventures for those who want the longer APs, some shorter for 5-6 levels to act as story arcs.

I must admit I'm excited about this, but I'm curious about the new Loyalty program. I'll wait for the next blog post, but I'm hoping getting to that top tier for the 15% discount isn't too rough...

If you were a halfling you could take helpful halfling to get +3 at level 9 with a crit success. It also removes the chance of giving your ally a -1 with a crit fail. That's the best one I can think of though.

I for one love Team+ classes and allow them in my home games, which my players really appreciate. I've found them to be well balanced, interesting options that keep roughly on the Paizo established power curve baseline. At the very least, my players haven't cracked them yet.

I would also throw my lot in with Roll for Combat as well. I have their bestiaries and Eldamon content, with the bestiaries getting the heaviest use. There's nothing quite like the player's surprise when you pull out a monster they haven't seen before, and with the foundry modules they couldn't be easier to use. I bought the Eldamon content intending to use it for a one shot for a couple of younger players that got canceled, but I'm hoping to use it soon.

Problem is: the game changes drastically from low levels to mid levels. my point is that 1-5 pathfinder is a COMPLETELY different game than 7-20 pathfinder mathematically speaking

I just want to highlight this one as one of my biggest problems with the system. I stepped my players through the beginner box, and though it did GREAT in explaining the very basics of the game such as attacking, combat, skill checks and etc I feel like it did not prepare them for any game beyond about 3rd level.

One thing I would love to see is some higher level skill builder adventures, for lack of a better term, to help players learn some skills that don't come up in lower level play. Along with these, you'd need some higher level pregenerated characters that have a paragraph or two highlighting what they're good at, their common combos, and how they interact with their companions.

That level 9 halfling gathered lore psychic? In addition to blasting the enemy with a cool ally ignoring AOE (Shatter Mind), once they activate unleashed psyche they can use occultism to give the magus a +4 aid bonus on their spell strike as an action and a reaction, likely triggering a crit, especially if the investigator used Shared Stratagem to make the enemy off-guard earlier in the round. And, because the investigator used strategic assessment as part of their devise a stratagem, the magus knew to use needle darts to trigger the creature's weakness to cold iron.

The level 6 druid that just got fireball? They can't drop that damage as easily if the front line charges in, but if the party delays to stay in a cluster with the justice champion near the center there's a good likelihood that there will be enemies clustered on one side of the party for a juicy multi-hit. The rogue that just got gang up also has a good reason to stick with their buddy, as now the enemies are vulnerable to sneak attack damage. Conversely, if they're facing spellcasters or breath weapons that's probably a bad idea!

For most experienced players thinking like this probably comes as second nature, but having it pointed out in a brief 'blurb about your character' in the beginning of the adventure would really help new players, I think. Once they see it in action they can hopefully go into the rulebooks proper to see WHY certain actions are good and start thinking of ways to synergize with their allies in ways that lower level adventures just don't cover very well.

I'm really excited for this new adventure format! I've run through the beginner box probably 5-6 times with various family members on family trips because it feels like a board game. Having alternatives that work the same way, with all the pawns and maps ready, seems like a big win!

I will say that if this does well I hope you branch out to higher levels in future products...a 5th level adventure would be a great level for a lot of players that aren't absolute newbies. The pregens have their first ability score bumps, spellcasters get their 3rd rank spells (fireball, anyone?) and everyone should have their striking runes so they feel a lot more powerful.

I like this idea. Part of the reason I subscribe to the Adventures Line but not the AP line is because I like having these as "drag and drop" adventures ready to fill story gaps in a homebrew campaign or to help as a template to learn better adventure design for a home campaign.

I still use my old dungeon magazines for this on occasion, since it's so easy to build encounters for 2nd edition...use the maps, characters and ideas from the magazine and quickly build encounters that fit the theme. I spoke in this thread before but I would love to see more linked adventures in this theme, and I really hope this one is successful.

id prefer age of ashes or agents of edgewatch, SoG is really good as is

Hear, hear! Season of Ghosts is already amazing. Age of Ashes was an incredible globe trotting adventure that was spoiled for a lot of people by lack of experience in the system and overtuned combats. Mellowing the combats out, tightening up the story beats a bit and releasing it all as a single book and foundry module would make it very well received I think. Agents of Edgewatch may be a little too hot to handle right now, considering everything, but I think Strength of Thousands and Outlaws of Alkenstar would benefit, also.

<snip>
Wrath of the Righteous converted to pf2e
<snip>

Just bringing some attention to this. This conversion is in progress in the Wrath of the Righteous forum by KingTreyIII! Go and check it out, he does awesome work and he's releasing all the work he's doing as he completes it.

Hey,

Love Paizo, love Foundry, love maps, love lore.

I'd like to suggest Paizo creates a premium module that has a high resolution map of Golarian, complete with scene notes full of lore on each location.

I moved over from 5e 2 years ago, and the biggest problem i've had is understanding the lore and what locations should look like. I know you can homebrew it up, but i'm a loyalist and think this module would be used in almost every campaign.

Just a suggestion!

I would LOVE this as a foundry pack that I could upload and let my players explore.

I'm going to throw in for a new book covering mage hunters or bounty hunting in general. I feel like in a world like Golarion that is so infused with magic, rogue magic users could be a big problem, much less high level adventurers. Perhaps they could throw in a set of psychic or magical duels in general. I loved the idea of the rules for Magical Duels in 2nd edition D&D (old fart alert...), but the implementation left something to be desired. I would love to see a more robust system for that, especially. There's a fantasy that's really not able to be played out with the current rules about a couple of magic users squaring off behind the lines of their allies, engaging in an invisible magic duel while their allies attempt to hold off the enemy's minions...

I feel like a book like Unchained would have to come AFTER all the remaining classes have been remastered.

Honestly, I wouldn't mind a supplement that gave options for playing Pathfinder set in something more resembling the modern era...

Been beating the drum for this for a while. I'd love to have all the eras covered so I could do a time traveling Chrono Trigger style campaign...

I've joked before about turning this game more and more into Chrono Trigger over the years. Between PF2e and SF2e, I think a reasonable GM could cover all of the characters and technology needed, so I feel like the last piece of that puzzle would be combo actions like what we're describing here.

The question becomes, how to balance the action economy? Assume a situation where you have a cleric with fire ray that wants to enhance the attack of a fighter. Does the cleric hold their initiative to match the fighter's so they can act at the same time, is it a reaction on the cleric's part, or is it a reaction plus slowed 1 on their turn? I think any of the above could work, though it just being a reaction is perhaps a bit strong. How do they learn how to do this?

One solution I've been playing around with in homebrew is a 'party feat' track, which are gained at 1st and each even level after that, like class feats. These feats are used to perform combos and aid each other during battle and in exploration. One combo might be the fire ray/stike action I described above, another might be a nimble rogue dodging between a giant's legs, unbalancing him enough for his fighter friend to get a free or reaction trip.

Not sure how to balance it, but it does seem like the missing piece to encourage more teamwork. Of course, this is all strictly in the realm of homebrew now, but I keep hoping the powers that be will try something like this.

We're all being rather juvenile, I'll hold off going forward.

After having misread a description of Gatewalkers as an escort quest AP, I now demand an escort AP. With the long-awaited attending LO book : Dancing Halls of Golarion.

(The below is written with tongue firmly in cheek.)

Could you fit a full AP out of that? Maybe you need to do a book of pub crawls first. Cayden Cailean would approve! Then you can do the Escort Book, then a Golem (the card game) book. I could certainly see my players having a good time.

Glad to see you're already 33% funded! I really think you should move some of the basic info about what's in the book to the front page - as is, the front page of your campaign essentially gives 0 information about what's inside it. You don't even explain what psionics are except at the very bottom of the FAQ page! You've gotta try and appeal to people who don't know anything about this kind of obscure 3.5/pf1e bonus ruleset.

As well, do you have any previews of content?

I have to agree. Had I not been familiar with Psionics from 1e/3.5 and your work with Alluria I probably would have passed on this one. Beef up that main page for more casual traffic! I've already pledged and I would love for it to fund so we an get our books.

If the Paizo warehouse sends mine out today I'll be super happy hint hint wink wink nudge nudge

Man, I have got to figure out the secret sauce to get higher in the queue. Let me know if it works! LOL

Grankless wrote:

Thank you. (and yeah my phone autocorrected DSP for some reason).

I wanted to be sure given how out-of-the-public-eye they've been these past few years.

I understand and appreciate that, and I know they would as well. Game design can be a labor of love, and life and stress take their toll. While communication is limited, Alluria Publishing wants to honor the memory of those past contributions to the Psionics theme as much as possible, in a respectful and honorable way.

Well, I for one am excited to see how this plays out. I was a big fan of DSP's work in the past, and I'm excited to see your take on adapting it to PF2e. More options are almost always a good thing!

So, I don't know if anyone has brought this up yet or not, but I want to say I REALLY appreciate the links in the front of the PDF in the table of contents. They really help when you're looking up a rule quickly. Now, if only we could get links on the right page ribbons to jump directly to where you're looking for, that would make the PDF much quicker to reference than the physical book at the table for me.

Super excited for this! Can't wait to see the final results of the playtest.

Very nice! Got a link from another forum post. Saved and favorited!