Nerf Bat's page

I'm excited about the new store, but it doesn't seem to be able to accept Apple Pay. I've tried three times and it keeps getting rejected

I came across this video examining a late 19th century weapon that is a real-world version of the Dagger Pistol, and I thought I'd share it. :)

On the Official FAQ Page I can't get any of the book listings to "open up" so I can read the errata.

I noticed this last night on my old iPad mini, but figured it was likely a compatibility problem because it is running a very old iOS and using an old version of Safari. But just now I used my iPhone running iOS 18.5 and I've encountered the same problem.

So I think something is wrong with the page itself.

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Edit: I just noticed that the "opening" mechanism is working just fine for both devices on the PFS FAQ Page so the problem doesn't seem to be on my end.

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Edit: And while I was adding that last part the problem seems to have been fixed. Thank you!

The Palatine Detective archetype is Uncommon. Is there a way to take it in PFS? Perhaps by purchasing the Secondary Initiation boon for the Esoteric Order of the Palatine Eye?

The website is suddenly showing up as a thin strip in the left side of my screen rather than full-screen as usual.

I'm using an iPhone with the iOS 17.4.1.

There's a post in the Organized Play General Discussion forum that is doxxing someone (name, address, and pictures) apparently for the purpose of instigating real world harassment.

I flagged it, of course, but given the potential consequences, I thought I'd post here where I hope a mod will see it before next Monday.

Since the update yesterday, I haven't been able to use Archives of Nethys with Safari on my iPhone because the menu button doesn't do anything. (It is working in Chrome although each page loads very slowly.)

Is anyone else having this menu issue?

I've put together a list of spells organized by trait for people who want to make personal staves.

• Personal Staff Spell Traits

I thought it would be fun for people to post their designs for personal staves so that others can use them as models. I'll start with one of my own designs.

As many of you know, I enjoy making lists and charts to help me plan out builds. Enough of them have proven useful to others that I decided to create a single thread to post them all. Currently they are all Google Docs.

I've made a page for quick reference. I'll expand it as I add more items.

• Gisher's Goodies

Enjoy!

I've added the Magus and Summoner to my Proficiency Tables.

• Guide to Proficiency Bonuses (web version)

• Guide to Proficiency Bonuses (Google Drive version)

Background

Investigators have the Skillful Lessons feature.

At 3rd level and every odd-numbered level thereafter, you gain a skill feat. This feat must be for an Intelligence-, Wisdom-, or Charisma-based skill, or for the skill you gained from your methodology.

The CRB and APG both have tables showing the skill feats that use each skill so it's easy to figure out which ones you can take with Skillful Lessons.

But...

Archetypes can have feats that are selected in place of skill feats rather than in place of class feats.

Occasionally, an archetype feat works like a skill feat instead of a class feat. These archetype feats have the skill trait, and you select them in place of a skill feat, otherwise following the same rules above.

There is no chart listing which skill is associated with each of these feats.

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Question

I'm wondering whether Skillful Lessons can be used to select archetype feats with the Skill Trait, and I can see three possibilities.

1.) Skillful Lessons works with ALL of these feats.
The archetype "skill feats" aren't really skill feats and aren't associated with any particular skills. So the usual restrictions on Skillful Lessons don't apply, and you can use those skill feat slots to select any of the archetype "skill feats."

2.) Skillful Lessons works with NONE of these feats.
The archetype "skill feats" aren't really skill feats and aren't associated with any particular skills. So the requirements of Skillful Lessons can't be satisfied, and you can't use those skill feat slots to select any of the archetype "skill feats."

3.) Skillful Lessons works with SOME of these feats.
The archetype "skill feats" act just like all other skill feats, and you can only select the ones that meet the requirements from Skillful Lessons.

That last one could be difficult to implement without clarification. Sometimes the archetype feats give you a clue as to what the associated skill might be. For example, the Steel Skin feat from the Sentinel Archetype has "trained in Survival" as a prerequisite. While not definitive, that suggests that this is a Wis-based "skill feat." But the same archetype also has the Armor Specialist feat which doesn't mention any skills at all.

I'm hoping that I've missed a rule somewhere, but it's possible that this interaction never occurred to the developers. Any clarifications or analysis from the community would be appreciated.

Is it ALL, NONE, or SOME?

I'm wondering whether your Familiar counts as your Bonded Item for the purpose of Call Bonded Item if you have the Improved Familiar Attunement Thesis.

Improved Familiar Attunement

...
Your connection with your familiar alters your arcane bond class feature so that you store your magical energy in your familiar, rather than an item you own; you also gain the Drain Familiar free action instead of Drain Bonded Item. Drain Familiar can be used any time an ability would allow you to use Drain Bonded Item and functions identically, except that you draw magic from your familiar instead of an item.

The prerequisite for Call Bonded Item is Arcane Bond. Does this altered version still qualify? It would be neat if you could call your Familiar to you anytime you want with a single action.

A while back I put together a few charts to help me visualize the optimal progression for Alchemist Multiclass Archetype. The tables assume that you take the main feats at the earliest possible levels. I've updated them with the new items from the APG. Thought I'd post them in case anyone else could use them.

The APG mentions Homunculus Familiars in two places.

From the Familiar Master archetype:

From the wise owl perched on the wizard’s shoulder to the crafty gremlin that serves the witch for their own reasons, the ghastly homunculus in the alchemist’s lab to the clever monkey that picks the lock of the thief’s cell, familiars have always served.

From the Familiars section:

Poison Reservoir

Your homunculus familiar has a reservoir for poison, allowing it to apply an injury poison to an adjacent ally’s exposed weapon with a single Interact action. You must supply the poison and instill it into this 6 reservoir using two consecutive Interact actions. You must have a homunculus familiar to select this ability.

But as far as I can tell, neither the APG nor the Bestiary give any rules for making a homunculus into a familiar. Have I missed something from another source or does the APG give us a Familiar Ability that can't currently be used?

Suddenly clicking on most product threads takes me to the Paizo Golem with this message.

You’ve reached this page due to an error on paizo.com. The web team has been notified and are working to fix the issue.

I'm on an iPhone 11 and using Safari. It doesn't seem to be a problem in the other forums.

I was having trouble visualizing the weapon proficiency progressions for the various classes, so I made up some tables. I thought I'd share them in case they can help others.

I made sure to include special cases like the Fighter's Chosen Weapon Group and the Deity's Favored Weapon options for clerics. I based the Unarmed Strike rules on the statements developers have made regarding the upcoming errata. There is some guessing involved so those might need some changes in the future.

Please let me know if you notice any errors or omissions. Enjoy!

I've been playing around with using Wizard Dedication to make 'Eldritch Knight' builds and 'Arcane Trickster' builds, and I just noticed this fact about Magical Staves.

Staves are also staff weapons (page 280), included in their Price. They can be etched with runes as normal for a staff. This doesn’t alter any of their spellcasting abilities.

This got me thinking about the Shifting Rune which would let the Staff become any other one-handed melee weapon.

The weapon takes the shape of another melee weapon that requires the same number of hands to wield. The weapon’s runes and any precious material it’s made of apply to the weapon’s new shape. Any property runes that can’t apply to the new form are suppressed until the item takes a shape to which they can apply.

I can think of a lot of cool options for this. For example, a thief-based 'Arcane Trickster' might have a Staff of Abjuration and shift it into a rapier. That gives them a weapon that can take advantage of their Dexterity-based offensive abilities while also providing a range of defensive options like shield, feather fall, and resist energy. They could also turn the Staff into a dagger for easy storage or concealment.

Does anyone knows of any rule that would prevent the Staff's spellcasting powers from functioning while it is in an alternate form?

Despite new posts, this thread isn't showing up in the Rules Forum as a newly updated thread.

For the last two days I haven't been able to load paizo.com through my iPhone, iPad, or Mac. I've just discovered that it loads if I turn wifi off and use LTE on my iPhone. I'm not having any difficulties with any other websites. Does anyone know of a potential fix for this?

I’m working on a list of the different types of spellcasters available from Paizo. I’d appreciate it if anyone can help corrrect any errors or omissions. The list uses the following format:

Class: Magic Type (Casting Stat) - Prepared/Spontaneous (Max Spell Level)

If a class has options, like archetypes, which alter these elements, they are listed below the basic class information.

Link to updated Google Docs version.

------------------------------

Edited to add Google Docs version.

I'm experiencing an odd little glitch. If I'm reading a thread (say on page 1) and select the link to a later page (say page 5), the link acts like the 'next' link and moves me forward one page (page 2 in this case) rather than taking me to the page that I selected. I'm having the issue on all the threads that I've tried so far.

Question

Does Arcane Strike add its damage to Rays which cause damage?

Overview

This has been discussed many times in these threads before without definitive resolution. But I believe that the Warlock's Mystic Bolt ability clarifies that Arcane Strike will work with Rays that cause damage.

Relevant Rules

Arcane Strike (Combat)

You draw upon your arcane power to enhance your weapons with magical energy.
Prerequisite: Ability to cast arcane spells.
Benefit: As a swift action, you can imbue your weapons with a fraction of your power. For 1 round, your weapons deal +1 damage and are treated as magic for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. For every five caster levels you possess, this bonus increases by +1, to a maximum of +5 at 20th level.

Ray: Do rays count as weapons for the purpose of spells and effects that affect weapons?

Yes. (See also this FAQ item or a similar question about rays and weapon feats.)
For example, a bard's inspire courage says it affects "weapon damage rolls," which is worded that way so don't try to add the bonus to a spell like fireball. However, rays are treated as weapons, whether they're from spells, a monster ability, a class ability, or some other source, so the inspire courage bonus applies to ray attack rolls and ray damage rolls.
The same rule applies to weapon-like spells such as flame blade, mage's sword, and spiritual weapon--effects that affect weapons work on these spells.

Weapon Specialization: Can you take Weapon Specialization (ray) or Improved Critical (ray) as feats? How about Weapon Specialization (bomb) or Improved Critical (bomb)?

All four of those are valid choices.
Note that Weapon Specialization (ray) only adds to hit point damage caused by a ray attack that would normally deal hit point damage; it doesn't increase ability score damage or drain (such as the Dexterity drain from polar ray), penalties to ability scores (such as from ray of enfeeblement) or drain, negative levels (such as from enervation), or other damage or penalties from rays.

Thread History

This question has been discussed many times before. Here is a sample of threads, going back as far as 2011, in which the topic has come up.

Weapon Focus & Arcane Strike
Does Arcane Strike work with Ray spells?
Arcane Strike and Ray Spells
Arcane Strike to Rays?
Scorching Ray and Arcane Strike / Weapon Spec.
Can I use arcane strike with acid splash?
Mythic Arcane Strike + Bane + Ray of Frost
Can Wind Wall deflects Rays?
Are rays weapons? and what about other "weapon" feats for them. halp

Arguments

I've seen two different arguments against Arcane Strike working with Rays. The first states that Arcane Strike only applies to weapons and Rays aren't weapons. But the FAQs clearly contradict this. I can't see any justification for this position.

The second argument is more significant. Arcane Strike states that "[a]s a swift action, you can imbue your weapons with a fraction of your power." For many people this means that the only weapons that are "charged up" are those in your possession when you perform the swift action. Rays are instantaneous, and so can't persist long enough to perform a swift action. Since Rays can't even exist while you activate Arcane Strike, this argument leads to the conclusion that, in practice, there is no way to apply Arcane Strike to a Ray even though they are treated as weapons. Inspire Courage works with Rays because the ability operates while the Ray is in existence, but Arcane Strike is over before you can make any Rays.

The counterargument is generally based on a different interpretation of the Arcane Strike description. In this view, the swift action isn't the only time window for "charging your weapons." Instead the sentence "[a]s a swift action, you can imbue your weapons with a fraction of your power" is interpreted to mean that it takes a swift action to grant yourself the ability to "charge up" your weapons. Under this interpretation, the next line "[f]or 1 round, your weapons deal +1 damage and are treated as magic for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction" clarifies that any weapons you use that round, even if they weren't in your possession during the swift action, will gain those benefits. Under this model, Rays would get the increased damage so long as they are used during that round.

If you read through the threads listed above, you will see both of these positions asserted over and over again. There weren't any other rules that enable us to determine which is the correct model for understanding the way Arcane Strike works, so there was no way to resolve the issue. But now that Ultimate Intrigue has introduced the Warlock's Mystic Bolts ability, I believe the deadlock has been resolved.

Mystic Bolts

...
Creating a mystic bolt requires the hand to be free, but the bolt appears only briefly, so a warlock using mystic bolts has a free hand any time she isn’t attacking with a mystic bolt. The warlock threatens with a mystic bolt, but only if she has a hand free. Because mystic bolts are impermanent, a spell that targets a single weapon (like magic weapon) can’t affect it, nor can a mystic bolt be made with magic weapon special abilities. Abilities that affect all weapon attacks the warlock makes, such as the arcane striker warlock talent, function with mystic bolts.
...

So if you use Arcane Striker (which is just the Arcane Strike feat until 12th level), and then create a Mystic Bolt, the Bolt is affected by Arcane Strike even though it didn't exist during the swift action. The description makes it clear that Arcane Striker doesn't work with Mystic Bolts because of some special dispensation, but rather because it, like Arcane Strike itself, is one of those abilities that affects all weapon attacks. If Arcane Strike really only affects weapons that exist during the swift action, then it shouldn't work on Mystic Bolts. But it does work on Mystic Bolts, so it should also work on Rays.

Discuss or FAQ as you wish. :)

The FAQ request button at the top of posts seems to have vanished. Posts that were FAQ'd previously still show the number of FAQ requests.

After a few days of heavy traffic, I'm able to get back on the messageboards using my computer. But my iPhone still just shows the "Heavy Traffic" message with nothing listed below. I can access my account and view my old posts, and if I click on one of them I am able to view that particular thread.

Possibly Relevant Stuff: iPhone 5, Safari, iOS 9.2.1, AT&T

I really enjoy being able to add enhancements to weapons using Spells, Magic Items, and Class Abilities. I've been keeping a list of methods for doing so, and I thought I would share it. This is my first attempt to publish a document using Google Docs, so please let me know if you experience and technical issues.

Temporary Enhancements to Manufactured Weapons

I also like Momentum. It's got some latin old timey vibes going for it.

Daredevil is pitch perfect for a Starfinder class, so it's kind of a shame to see it used here. Don't see a great alternative. Maybe Madcap. Either way, it's probably fine.

Slayer is spot on. I wouldn't want to to change it at all.

WatersLethe wrote:

Eyes peeled ◎ܫ◎

Yes keep them peeled! We have lots planned! We also recommend turning on notifications for our Twitch channel so you can tell when we're live since sometimes the calendar is a bit wonky on accurately displaying what our streams will be.

Any chance for simultaneous Youtube streams? I loathe Twitch with a fiery passion.

There's so much narrative space for a shifter character far outside of Druid that starting from the assumption that it should be druid related, let alone a Druid class archetype, is completely off the mark in my opinion. That's before we get into the mechanical reasons.

I want a Shifter class that has no anathema or other requirements forcing them to be reverent of nature. If a player wants to build a character that shifts into animals and worships nature, they can, but they can also play a Skinwalker who makes a mockery of nature and uses natural forms purely for nefarious purposes. The class should also support turning into monsters, unnatural creatures cooked up by a wizard, magical beasts, or other such things. I would also want them to be able to explore the Animorphs narrative question of losing sight of your original form, or the love-hate relationship with your alternate forms in werewolf stories.

Mechanically, I want the entire focus being on the shifting, with no distractions like spellcasting. I want them to be able to focus on one or two forms like a WoW Feral Druid and take on standard martial roles, or have more flexibility to be a as-the-situation-requires shapeshifter and have more of a utility role. They should be able to change forms lighting fast (free action once per turn type of fast). They should also start with a full body transformation at level 1, so you're not mucking around with baby "I grow some mediocre generic claws to be a bad Barbarian for 2 levels" stuff.

It would be REALLY COOL if we still got an Erik Mona keynote style presentation, just launched on youtube or something. I look forward to those the most!

I approve this message.

WWHsmackdown wrote:

*Monkey's paw curls and 4e is remade.* I would be down for this though, lol

Paizo DID remake D&D 4e already, it's called Pathfinder 2e. The first time I opened the rules for 2e and read focus points, I laughed so hard that it alerted people. There's something so funny about the company that existed to compete with 4e just looping around to reinventing "at will, encounter, and daily powers".

Maybe 4e's... polarizing design would have succeeded better if the whole encounter powers design was opt-in, like Focus Spells are. Or if they had tried at all to tie them into the fiction and pacing with things like refocus activities. Or if most martials didn't have to interact with the same resource as casters do, which made classes feel less mechanically varied.

I do find the "Focus Spells = Encounter Powers" and "PF2 is 4e in a trenchcoat" takes hilariously reductive, but I'm glad some people are able to feel smart when they find parallels between related things!

My first instinct is that Daredevil should either be in Starfinder or a Swash archetype, and Slayer should be a ranger archetype, or a monster parts subsystem.

My second instinct is that I should probably let them cook before I come down too hard either way. I'll probably still wish we got Shifter instead because the fantasy being sold in both is way more achievable with current options than a good Shifter is.

Neither of these thoughts means I don't love playing PF2, and to suggest otherwise is wild.

Skateboarding skeleton named Calcium?

Oh, it doesn't work on Firefox for me (along with the OK button on the "we have updated our privacy policy" banner), thought that was a blank page.

I was wondering why there doesn't appear to be a prominently placed calendar that shows upcoming releases, Paizo Live, conventions, etc.

I get super lost when talking about upcoming content and even prior release schedules.

I don't sweat small to medium mechanical details. Pursuing balance has diminishing returns that I think kick in WAY earlier than a lot of people complaining seem to expect. Quality control issues are not that big of a deal for me either, since a few typos or RAW flubs are easily fixed.

What would concern me are things like lack of creativity, tunnel-visioning on approaches to products, employee burnout, major disconnects between teams, corporate policy or investment changes, or other doom portents.

I think they need to shake up adventure design, should explore new product categories, and could afford to branch out into other styles and themes. Overall, I'm not worried however.

Flagged this post to be moved to "null" /s

I'm sure he did a great job but loading the new guy up with frikin Starship Combat was a hilariously brutal move.

Overall it was an excellent interview, and I loved the notetaking OP!

I'm so looking forward to checking out the final technomancer and new dwarf content. Rock and Stone!

"Nethys found some new magic and tried it out" is as good an explanation as any lol. It's certainly something he would do.

Hey guys look what I can-

Ryuutama would be probably the epitome of "Cosy Fantasy" to me & my groups (if for nothing else than the vibe & aesthetics)! :D

Carry on,

--C.

Ryuutama has definitely come up a lot in my research! There are quite a few cozy games these days. One I thought I'd mention is Iron Valley if only for how adorable it is.

One mechanical issue I have with trying to represent abilities mathematically in a system where level is so much more relevant is that ability scores only actually matter in a very specific level range

That's just flatly untrue. A +1 vs +3 cha person using intimidate is a significant difference all the way throughout levels 1 to 20.

WatersLethe wrote:

Like I said earlier, if you decouple accuracy from stats but leave them in for most other purposes, you've already done most of the job people seem to think removing stats achieves.

Genuine question: if attributes were to no longer affect checks, what would their purpose be? Would they just exist to satisfy feat prerequisites, increase the Bulk you can carry, give you extra trained skills, and so on?

I mean they no longer affect the accuracy of attacks and spells. They can still affect damage, skill checks, and everything else they do. A low strength fighter would lose a few points of damage rather than 20%+ of their damage.

I think people are just way too focused on the accuracy part of a class's main schtick (to an illogical degree honestly) that removing it from the equation may be enough.

Like I said earlier, if you decouple accuracy from stats but leave them in for most other purposes, you've already done most of the job people seem to think removing stats achieves.

Hi everyone! I'm in the middle of writing and playing a cozy campaign with my group based on Stardew Valley. In developing this campaign and its subsystems I've encountered quite a few game design thoughts that I think would be fun to discuss. Here's one:

Dungeons Are Extremely Compatible with a Cozy Campaign

This is a big topic, so my apologies for rambling! For those that don't know, in Stardew Valley, a farming sim, there exist several caves/dungeons which you can fight your way through and explore to obtain resources that help you in the rest of the game. These dungeons are fun and can be genuinely challenging.

In my experience, true dungeons have been slowly going extinct in D&D and Pathfinder. I see all the time people online admitting that they hardly use dungeons anymore, or that dungeons are reserved for OSR play where torches, prying gems out of sockets, and traps still matter. In many modern groups, a dungeon is on narratively shaky ground from the outset, and proper dungeon exploration clashes with story-and-adventure-driven clocks.

The big issues with dungeons, from what I can tell, are:

1. Narrative. A dungeon filled with danger and treasure, waiting for the party to delve its depths. Unless there's some village/town/city/country/world ending threat requiring the party to delve, the player characters have to be suicidally greedy to throw themselves at it just for treasure or fame. Not everyone wants to play such a character. Having a story setup that requires you to explore such a dangerous place lends itself to ticking clocks, outside pressure, and a Main Story that makes taking your time feel strange. It's a tough fit.

2. Megadungeons. Let's say you're narratively incentivized to delve a dungeon (this incentive often encourages exclusive focus on the dungeon). It's pretty hard to come up with similar narrative structures that make you delve multiple dungeons, so you end up pushed to a mega-dungeon. Megadungeons have a lot of weight on their shoulders. They have to have all the experience and loot required for the full level range, and they tend to have big sections with vastly different ecologies and structure in order to keep things fresh while supporting the whole campaign, and even get loaded up with NPCs you'd rather not include just for the completeness of the TTRPG experience. They usually must have a continuous difficulty, without jumps in threat that require returning later. In short, they can end up a thematic disaster, or otherwise prevent you from having a tight, lean, fun dungeon.

3. Traps. We all know about the issues with traps. Too strong, they delete characters. Too weak, they don't matter. Keeping an eye out for traps feels mechanically orphaned from the rest of the game in PF2. In OSR, you're not supposed to be attached to your character, so instant death is allowed to be on the table, but in games where you are encouraged to keep your character around the price of traps is in-game time, which, as discussed previously, is often meaningless. Without traps, dungeons can feel too much like sequential rooms filled with monsters, and traversing a dungeon will have little mechanical distinction from waltzing through the woods. I do think traps are a useful tool if they could be implemented properly.

So, what happens when death is off the table, the party has lots of things they want to do in a day, and there is a robust "town/farm" experience that provides incentives for exploration?

Since the players know they won't permanently lose their characters, it's no longer about risking your life for treasure, it's risking some time and whatever penalty replaces death. You can have much more reasonable minded characters who would agree to delve. The narrative of exploration is much more palatable, and the decision isn't forced by some outside force or doomsday clock.

This, in turn, means exploring multiple dungeons is a lot easier to fit in the narrative, so each dungeon can be more distinct, doesn't have to be bloated with all the treasure and experience you need for a level range, and can even have discontinuous challenges that encourage the party to metroidvania around the campaign.

You can also bring "death" back as a trap consequence, though in this case it's a non-permanent penalty, it can still hold a lot more weight than PF2's "okay we heal up the damage and continue" penalty. However, as discussed previously, time as a resource in this type of campaign means stopping to treat wounds and conditions that traps might impose actually matters, since it might prevent you from completing a villager's request by the due date. Additionally, traps designed exclusively to waste time (no damage, no conditions) are suddenly a thing.

Going back to the OSR compatibility of this style of campaign, the players are responsible for earning their own money to either meet or exceed the wealth by level table, so they can bring back old school shenanigans like stealing the furniture, searching for every last secret compartment, disassembling and selling traps, etc. Since they're in the same region, they can also take over and convert dungeons (unless you opt for random/regenerating kinds). The players can come up with unusual solutions if they can make the time budget make sense, like tunneling, or flooding.

I've been excited to imagine being able to mix and match pre-written dungeons from other sources and using them as drop in content for these style of campaigns, and I've been enjoying flexing my long neglected dungeon building skills.

TL;DR:

Nonlethal, cozy games can use dungeons effectively as a welcome change of pace from more peaceful activities, without requiring PCs be willing to risk life and limb for a bit of treasure. Dungeon design is easier, and less constrained than in other types of campaigns, and the old tropes of dungeon exploration can be given new life.

Have you experienced issues with getting dungeons to fit in your modern campaigns?

Do you even like dungeons?

I like attributes. Same with Vancian casting. I'd rather they decouple accuracy from attributes instead of getting rid of them altogether, if something has to be done to change them. I love being able to mechanically express my characters the way I currently can using them, and all the attribute replacement suggestions I've seen sound like hot garbage to me.

WatersLethe wrote:

In my campaign I have a gradual early warning system that something is going wrong if they try to game the system with years doing one repetitive thing with the intention of breaking something else. I haven't mentioned it, and I have no idea if it'd come up.

I have a similar thing. I like to call, "Oh, so that's what you think you're doing? Would you like to reconsider that activity?"

Said in a tone that implies their character will soon die if they do not.

Lol!

My consequence is basically "that Cozy label on the campaign? it's starting to peel off at the corner"

Hi everyone! I'm in the middle of writing and playing a cozy campaign with my group based on Stardew Valley. In developing this campaign and its subsystems I've encountered quite a few game design thoughts that I think would be fun to discuss. Here's one:

Wait, Is This Cozy Game Actually Old School Revival Aligned?

Now, admittedly, I'm not an OSR aficionado so I might not be the most up to date with definitions in the space, but as I understand it OSR is all about player agency, fewer prescribed methods for engaging with the game world, allowing players to encounter challenges they're not expected to defeat, emergent storytelling, and increased lethality. In my limited experience, I associate it with a rag-tag group that's banded together to increase their chances of surviving a megadungeon with the goal of extracting loot to increase their own power and pay for extravagances back in town. I think of carousing in town, hiring NPCs, dumping money into local politics, gaining fame, buying castles, or building a wizard school as background goals that the PCs may be actively or nominally doing all this adventuring for. I decidedly don't think of OSR as about saving the world, or even saving the town. In a lot of my early memories it was all about going out and finding adventure from a relatively peaceful starting point.

Setting aside lethality (in my opinion, permanent death should be difficult to achieve in a Cozy game), I was surprised to find out that a lot of the subsystems, goals, and game design I was pulling together fit in well with the OSR mentality.

I'm able to put dungeons together with foes and challenges they cannot yet face, and may have to metroidvania their way back to. If they do try to throw themselves at these threats, they'll probably lose, costing them some penalty but not game over. They could spend time mining through the walls to get where they want to go, but again time is valuable so that would be a meaningful choice.

Since they have all the time in the world to gather resources or earn money, I'm not bothering to hand out loot to make sure they're on the right wealth by level chart. They can do that themselves. They're free to try to invest time in building up wealth so they can stomp lower level encounters, but alternatively they can go in guns blazing and try to get the items they need from those encounters to speed run their long term goals. This also means it's worthwhile to scrap and carry all the loot you can, instead of just handwaving piles of weapons and armor as trash. This in turn makes carrying capacity matter (too many trips back and forth and you don't have time to plant crops!). Having a bag to carry stuff matters.

Building up relationships with the NPCs is critical because it gets them access to a lot of different bonuses and incentives (in addition to just having romance goals), as a natural part of their advancement. As an example, special seeds, buildings, or equipment are locked behind NPC trust. It's almost like how fighters automatically got Keeps and retainers in old school D&D; these NPC relationships are just more organically developed.

Focusing on one region allows the players to decide to meaningfully advance it if they so wish, and be rewarded for doing so. If they wanted to, they could found a wizard school on the land and have the students help them with magical farming, or build out a farming guild to help with collecting a stockpile of food or paying taxes.

I'm of course glossing over the subsystems that I'm working on that encourage these things, like the punishment for subsisting off of rations, the magical farming rules, the bonuses for eating good food, the regional hidden stories and dungeon design, but I thought it was interesting how much overlap there is between OSR and Cozy.

TL;DR:

Aside from lethality, a lot of the elements of a cozy, low-stakes campaign align surprisingly well with what I understand to be OSR goals.

What is OSR to you? Can PF2 even be bent toward what you would consider OSR gameplay?

What is Cozy Fantasy / Low Stakes Fantasy / Cozy Gaming to you? Have you ever gotten tired of being tasked with saving the world all the time in your TTRPGs?

I did the same, yet it worked in my campaign. I wondered about the difference, so I asked my wife, the most sandboxy of the players, though two other players out of seven come close. She says that the GM cannot create a sandbox alone. The players have to actively contribute to pushing the narrative and expanding beyond the plot.

I think in my case a big contributing factor was my feeling that each addition I made to the game should have a good mix of magical-school content, player background engagement, and exciting encounters. I ended up wedging apart the AP content and getting limited by what sort of rewards I could offer. I didn't want to out-level or out-gear the AP stuff with too much of my custom content.

With my experience now with cozy content, I could have devised alternative reward schemes that engage the players' need for mechanical incentives beyond *just* having fun roleplaying. While we do like some good roleplaying opportunities, we also like game structure (which is why we like PF2, now that I think about it), and building relationship points and earning a grade in class would make a big difference. I actually took a look at Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs to see if I could make mechanical hooks to each layer for the players to latch onto and strive towards.

Our current mood is a bit more towards main story, which is also because we tend to have one session per month. Everyone is busy having kids and such. So I focus a lot on having every session being a pretty complete standalone thing, that has a good tension curve and completes something by the end of the session.

That has been my situation for many prior years. It has taken a toll, in my opinion, on the feel of the game, because watching the real world clock and making sure they make progress in today's story to reach a satisfying conclusion absolutely burns through swathes of opportunities to stop and smell the roses in-game. It's almost unavoidable, though. We had lots of fun, but now I'm hoping to get a more frequent, more bite-sized game going where they run through maybe 7 in-game days in a session, note how they're meeting their targets, and get ready for next time.

When you're trying to be as productive with your time as possible, that to me is the opposite of cozy, and taken to an extreme you get stuff like speedrunning, which even in Stardew Valley isn't at all relaxing.

Yeah 100%, there are plenty of conversations online about whether Stardew Valley actually counts as a cozy game when so often you'll find yourself fighting your way out of the caves as the clock turns red and your heart rate goes through the roof. I think a key is that it's not happening *all* the time. It occurs in spikes, and even when the clock runs out the consequences aren't life and death so it's more of a "Eustress" situation than it could be.

I think you're also right that having positive outcomes they work toward is key. I have a few of those, but I might want to beef up my festival rewards based purely on your suggestion. It sounds like a great idea.

I think this is a cool idea, but it only works when everyone in the party has things they're interested in besides the main plot/combat.

...
I feel like this kind of thing could work in a low stakes sandbox campaign, but probably not outside of it.

Making sure everyone has something outside of combat that they're interested in is definitely a requirement! I had to spend a lot of time developing content that's both mechanically and narratively interesting enough to make sure people who voted to play a Stardew Valley game *actually* followed through with engaging with noncombat stuff.

I *think* there are ways to make such things viable in more traditional adventure games, as long as it's a sandbox. But once you have a main plot line I do suspect that will suck the air out of the room for the rest of the optional content.

Stardew Valley is a farming game, right? That's all I know about it, so WatersLethe's analogy went right over my head.

Stardew Valley is a popular farming game with cave exploration, combat, mining, and loot in addition to the farming, villager interactions, and holiday events. It gives you a glut of options for what to do each day, and the day's clock ticks by fast, so you can never do all you want to, and it also provides a bunch of different short and long-term goals that give you something to strive for. I highly recommend looking into it if only as reference for its craftsmanship and gameplay design (and music!).

Strength of Thousands barely mentions time

I know! This Stardew Valley themed game I'm running is coming right off the back of finishing Strength of Thousands. Our group didn't get any of the cozy vibes we were hoping to experience in a magical school game. I had pulled together a calendar and side content and all that jazz, but I came to realize the "main plot" was a huge reason why it just couldn't do what we wanted it to do. We wanted more sandbox, and NPCs to interact with, and options, and down-to-earth gameplay, but everything I came up with to add in that department had to fit into the pacing of the linear adventure.

I could very much see us going back to a school with a day-by-day approach like I'm using now, with studying and classwork being some of the optional daily activities.

Hi everyone! I'm in the middle of writing and playing a cozy campaign with my group based on Stardew Valley. In developing this campaign and its subsystems I've encountered quite a few game design thoughts that I think would be fun to discuss. Here's one:

Time as a Resource, But, Like, In a Stardew Valley Way

We all know by now that using time as a resource is a great tool in a GM's toolkit, allowing you to put pressure on your group, encourage them to use other resources when otherwise they would be conservative, and make efficient performance in combat (even trivial ones) matter. It's gotten to a point where I regularly recommend GMs keep track of the world's tick rate in 10 minute intervals, because even in a dungeon with no big bad planning a doomsday clock, you can generate time pressure by having each tick of the world have a chance for some new threat to arise, or otherwise change the game state.

One of the problems with a ticking clock, however, is that now you've got players worried about two high stakes: threats to their characters' lives and limbs, as well as a constant dread of time running out. It's not very relaxing, even if it's more compelling moment to moment.

Something interesting happens when you shift the consequences away from the dire; when failure in combat doesn't mean permanent death, and running out the clock is mostly just a matter of losing out on something you would have done in that time. Players start to think of time as a currency that they can afford to spend on things they want, rather than as either an infinite resource that the GM better handwave or they'll riot, or as a nail biting countdown to the Bad End.

Resting for ten minutes between encounters starts to stack up and they wonder if they'll have enough time left in the day to get back home, or if they'll have to camp out. Coming out of a combat unscathed means they can move onto the next without taking a break, and maybe fit in a visit to a friend's house in the evening. Going back and forth to the cave to fight slimes means spending travel time that could be used to plant more crops, so it's a great idea to go as far as you can on each trip. Downtime activities like crafting can be mixed into day-to-day adventuring, making Downtime a regular thing rather than a "between story arcs if the GM remembers" type of thing. Time passing feels more realistic, when each hour of each day matters tracking days passing, and keeping the calendar is easy and natural.

We're still only a few sessions in, but running Time like Stardew Valley does, as a limit to just how many things you can achieve each day for you to either strategize and optimize or as an outside means of forcing you to make in-world priority choices, has felt quite refreshing! Obviously, a lot of this goes into other elements of the Stardew Valley campaign and its homebrew elements, but I'll save talk about those for another post.

TL;DR:

When players have many optional things they want to do in a day and a limited amount of time to do them, spending time feels meaningful but not overly dire.

How have you experimented with different approaches to handling time expenditure, especially in a sandbox game?

What's the finest time increment you find yourself regularly paying close attention to outside of combat?

Happy new year Paizo Staff! Thanks for all your hard work, and keep on being real cool folks!

The reason they're combined is so that they're not utterly boned by resistances. You're already not guaranteed to hit both attacks, so trying to overcome resistance is already punishing as heck. Finally landing both strikes only for the full damage to be eaten to no effect would have people flipping the table. Also, a lot of dual wielders and monks invest heavily in dexterity for various reasons, meaning their strength might not be maxed out, further reducing their peak damage numbers.

Even with the combined damage, I'd still take a big accurate single attack over two combined smaller attacks 10 times out of 10 for overcoming resistance.

Seeing as Paizo doesn't have a headquarters anymore one would need to master chronomancy to even attempt it.

HEAD quarters. We're sneaking into the chambers of their MINDS!

Cozy Campaign Guide: How to play low stakes fantasy in Pathfinder. Also has detailed and engaging downtime systems like Farming, as well as fleshed out goods and services costs.

I did plan on lifting the restriction of property runes, forgot to mention that. I'd love for the staff to be a great way for "i'm a pure caster" type players to engage with the rune system.

Air repeater also has reload, and can't also be used for melee attacks one and two handed, as well as being a source of extra spell slots. I would say it's probably closer to balanced as-is than granting legendary proficiency with it to most full casters would be.

I think I've come down on it definitely needing to scale off standard weapon attack proficiency. The goal is to compete with having an air repeater, not to make a wizard as good at using an air repeater as a fighter, better than most martials.

Conceptually, it's launching an energy attack without building in spellwork to make it accurate. It's not supposed to be anyone's main plan of attack, and making it scale with spell attack is just too no-brainer. You'd never see casters opting to pick up different backup ranged weapons if they liked, since that legendary accuracy is too juicy.

If someone were to try to go all-in to optimize it with goodies that power up attacks, I would want a martial to be the one to be able to do that. So a multiclass fighter with a staff that they're really good at going pew pew with, better than a wizard, sits with me just fine. It might even help them feel more like a multiclassed character since they get more from being able to use staves.

And yeah, I think a level 1 staff is probably called for in this fantasy. I could see making it only available to spellcasting classes at the start, too.

Don't wizards in the Harry Potter universe fire simple quick blasts with their wands?

That sounds similar, but with a staff.

Actually, from what I remember, they are always using their wands to cast what are considered full on spells in that setting.

The Gandalf/Saruman slugfest with staves from the movies might be a closer example from media.

In WoW classic some classes would auto-attack with a wand doing chip damage when they were out of mana, which is probably the closest flavor to what I'm proposing.

I actually kind of like the mechanic of getting tougher the more feats of a tough class you take. It is true, however, that it's really hard to get value out of, and I very rarely take it.

I would note that Toughness and Resiliency aren't competing with each other, and if you really want to get more HP you're going to get both, and General Feats are, for some reason, the designated boring but effective math increase pool.

When you look at the math, it seems like they hit on 3 HP per feat because it leaves you just under the base HP of the next higher HP die after 10 feats of investment. 4 HP per feat makes you match. The problem is that 10 feats of investment is ENORMOUS. Already, I strongly believe you could bump it to 4, and it would easily be fair for that level of dedication.

Twice level HP, as Teridax suggests, would be a one feat investment to go up a die size in HP. That might be on the too strong side, and I would see going out of your way for it on any class below d12 hit die. Though, it does have the benefit of being simple.

I could see a flat +1 hp per level, plus 2 for every dedication feat. You get a little weaker toughness off the bat, but it stacks with toughness and other options, so lots of HP optimizers would still love it. Then the 2 hp per feat leaves you off at a total +40 if you go 10 feats deep, which means you'd be equal to a die size increase.

How would you feel about a high-magic homebrew rule that lets people make a ranged weapon strike with a staff that's 1d4 and a fixed energy type with a ~30ft range, maybe in the sling weapon group like foxfire?

Kinda like the idea of doing some old school WoW style wand spam, and making it a bit cooler to have a staff handy.

I really wish they had removed the different grades of materials and also the rune-gating, and made precious materials a lot cooler. At least if the effects were awesome the wildly out to lunch prices could be justified.

I ignore rune-gating at my tables so no one has to bother with special materials if they don't want to.

As-is, precious materials are essentially another monetary loot drop that is hard to slot in anywhere it'd actually be exciting without unbalancing party wealth.

Part of the problem with the Exemplar is that it sought to be able to embody the stories of heroes from mythology, which in large part the entire D&D/Pathfinder paradigm already tries to do with every character. High level PCs are supposed to have legendary items, a big history of heroic acts, fame far and wide, and a shot at challenging the gods or rising to divinity. That's a really common way of playing high level characters since forever.

The Exemplar, narratively and mechanically, is sort of a redundant subsystem layered on top of some foundational heroic fantasy adventurer TTRPG assumptions. They mix and match abilities that ordinarily would be spread throughout a party because their inspirations were often solo-acts, they draw class power from items that would ordinarily show up later in the game because mythological figures normally start high level and they had to square that circle, and they go about their party roles in nonstandard ways to differentiate themselves from the classes that would otherwise represent their mythological inspirations.

It's not a bad class, I appreciate its variety, utility, and flexibility. I think it's unfair to compare them at face value and say another class does their schtick better. In total, I think they're pretty well balanced.

I do find it a shame that they're so item/ikon focused, and are more of a mythological hero, main character-lite class than a Godling class. It would have been nice if many items being kinda boring had been solved so that everyone could have cool items, instead of making a class that kind of hoards the cool item concept.

This is like when the chipotle guy loads you up with double scoops without charging extra

Looks like we are back.

Looks that way, but can we ever really be sure?

Oh, wait, yeah, I guess we can be sure in this instance.

Oh no! Where are all the crypto spammers going to hang out while the site is down? Did anyone think of the crypto spammers?!

I'm going to be here, doing a long salute, as the server goes dark.

Definitely looking forward to the new shiny!

Also am ready for the challenge of remembering a new password. o__o

Just do what I do and use 12345, I haven't forgotten it yet!

Bigger = better is dumb.

If we're talking about having more mass, you can already make normal sized weapons nigh-unwieldable by adjusting the balance and materials. If more mass = more better, weapon design would already account for it. Essentially, you want to have a usable balance between mass and speed to convert your muscle power into damaging strikes that have a hope of hitting their target.

If we're talking about size, as long as a face, edge, or point is sufficient for lethality, extra size is only a detriment. Spreading your force over a larger area or introducing more surface area for friction during a cut is just not helpful.

Bigger creatures deal more damage because they're stronger, and can handle swinging around more mass at an effective speed. The increased size of their weapons is about durability and comfort.

So a regular sized human, who is supernaturally strong enough to effectively wield a giant's sword, would be better off using that strength on a weapon sized for themselves, with a mass distribution that maximizes their muscle effectiveness.

I get that some people are still going to be like "but my cool too big sword!" and want a mechanical benefit for using one. If giant instinct barbarian isn't enough, slap on a house rule +1 bludgeoning damage per die to go along with the clumsy condition.

One of PF2's strengths was the siloing of many options to reduce the cognitive load of making selections. The different feat buckets is the main example.

However, item selection is not siloed, and the reduction of slot based itemization from PF1 means you don't generally shop from a selection of rings, then a selection of boots, then a selection of cloaks, etc. It's easy to get lost looking into what you should buy.

If things were categorized better, and with a more clear reference to the ABP chart that tells you what you're supposed to have when, it could make the itemization much more approachable.

As far as food, the inner bark of certain trees, such as pine, birch, and willow, is edible and contains carbohydrates, fiber, vitamins (e.g., vitamin C), and minerals (e.g., potassium). At 500-600 calories a pound, you'd only have to make @5 pounds per person. So 2 uses of Base Kinesis covers 1 person.

LOL! Adventurers listening are absolutely sweating bullets right now.

"They're asking us to eat eat 5 pounds of tree bark now? I thought the jerky was bad enough"

I'd like to reiterate that the "Pay to get the new version that actually works" isn't a solution to the problems a lot of people are raising. It seems like those saying that we just need to make sure there are enough upgrades throughout the level range are ignoring this.

Players will *still* disdain items without scaling DCs because they don't want to get on the stupid upgrade treadmill. It doesn't matter if there are plenty of upgrade steps along the way. It's the same reason lots of people don't like consumables, a non-scaling item is just saying "Don't get attached."

Pouring money into a hole doesn't feel good and it's not weird that people prefer items that don't require you to do that.

Even if full automatic scaling isn't desirable, there are ways to give DCs that are at least relevant. Like my earlier suggestion, or like: "Use the item's DC or an Easy DC for the Character's level, whichever is greater"

One decision point I think really kind of sucks here is how SF2 sort of silo'd off melee builds into their own space. The fact that you can't be a melee ghost operative because Paizo decided to make your abilities not work unless you took the melee quarantine subclass hurts build variety a lot, and maybe contributes to that feeling of restrictiveness.

I loathe it when they do this. It's easily my biggest pet peeve when they design new classes.

Let the options breathe!

If I had to wait another got dang year to get SF2 out just to have a couple extra classes on launch I would have rioted. The starting lineup is plenty to get started, and that's not even considering the PF2 compatibility. I am quite impressed with what we got, and could see myself playing every class multiple times.

Either way, getting the system launched earlier rather than later was such a good call that I will forgive a LOT of foibles.

We've been trying to reach you about your starship's extended warranty.

I love the Wiki map!

I treat hard anathemas like for clerics, druids, champions and barbarians as roleplay guidelines. If the player is following their character concept they're mostly irrelevant.

They have yet to come up in any meaningful way in my games.