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Qadira, without question.
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In case someone hasn't suggested it to you before, have you considered checking out Roll for Combat's Eldemon supplement? It comes with a trainer class and I wanna say forty-odd evolutionary families of critters. The actual specific rules interaction for that character was Bombard Soldier's free grenade of their level, and the fact that there's a hybrid item that is a Grenade of Summon Monster. The fact that soldier's got more bonus feats so I could more easily fit a companion creature as well was just a bonus. I don't think the BattleZoo stuff would be a good fit (and most of the tables I'm at are a bit leery of 3rd-party stuff)
I have played SF1e, I even enjoyed it, but it was very much in spite of the system rather than because of it (I really really dislike the 3.5-style actions - too many to keep track of). As I'm much fonder of the PF2e-style three actions, my hope is that SF2e will be much more fun, as I won't have to spend half my time wrestling the system. (unfortunately it doesn't look like I'll be able to convert my absolute favourite 1e character, Ketchiketchim the Skittermander Pokemon trainer, just yet...)
I would also love to see a Big Book of Aliens - a lot of the fun of Starfinder is the sheer variety of playable creatures, but 2e Ancestries take more page space than a sidebar in the Alien Archive, so having a book just full of ancestry feats (maybe some ancestry-linked archetypes? Like how Howl of the Wild had the Clawdancer and Thlipit Contestant.) The big advantage of having to take more page space for Ancestries is that you can fit more lore in, which I am excited about! Also seconding (or like 30th-ing) the requests for a good look at the Planes - considering there's basically an FTL method using each of the Outer Planes to skip real space, there's not really a big breakdown of how they all are in the future. Yes, yes, everyone has sci-fi weapons now, but how have the actual places changed?
I think having a formerly-incorporeal undead creature strangled in messed-up cosmic abomination vines that are both tying it to this world metaphorically and in the sense that they're literally forced into tangibility is an interesting idea. Like, technically it's against the rules of how undead stuff works, but letting the Colour break some rules feels appropriate to it's whole thing.
I recommend reading why the giraffe is used as an example of evolution over intelligent design. It is a hoot. Five entire meters of vagus nerve is one heck of an argument against anyone having designed that on purpose, yeah. (I believe there's an anatomical dissection available where they manage to extract the entire nerve intact, which is both very impressive and makes it sharply obvious how ridiculous this is)
Well, in 1e there were a couple of different armor options that could either change size with you, or be rapidly adjusted in order to fit different sized wearers (obviously the first option is more expensive). Presumably we'll get at least some of those options in the Core.
I suspect GM Core is gonna have the creature building rules, and probably some suggestions for converting PF2e (and SF1e) creatures - there do seem to be a few differences in damage resistance between PF2e and SF2e. In a ranged-heavy game, even quite low resistances can entirely prevent attack damage, and that's worth being careful of.
(The wyvern/amphithere/dragon/linnorm thing you've got up there was literally made up by this one English fantasy author. Frankly, if we're choosing classification systems from children's fantasy, I'd rather we picked Graeme Base's The Discovery of Dragons than Dragonology. Much weirder and more interesting designs!) Speaking of skymetal(-adjacent) dragons, I'm very curious to see if we'll get an Aucturnite Dragon, considering the SF2e Tech Playtest mentions it as a new exotic material (presumably any stats will be for Starfinder, but converting shouldn't be too hard). An Abysium Dragon would be cool as heck, with some kind of sickening aura (I would be physically unable to resist the urge to give it blueish bones visible through translucent green hide, but the people working on PF2e's dragons have been way more visually creative than me), or a Siccatite dragon for a unique option for cold damage, and that Dawnsilver could be pretty fun - it's basically a near-complete opposite material to adamantine, so seeing how much flex the mechanical chassis of "skymetal dragon" has in it.
So, presumably the upcoming (MC2) Cinder Dragon is our remastered red (as well as, y'know, the diabolic also being a remastered red), in the same way that the horned dragon is our remastered green, which means we'd only be getting at most three other remastered chromatics. I'd honestly rather they didn't do that - having five dragons for the sake of equivalency with a license that isn't being used anymore seems like a waste of creative effort that could be better used for new and original ideas. On the other hand, I also want an ice-breathing dragon please!
It would also be slightly silly for the primary goddess of Nagaji to have an unarmed attack using the mouth that didn't count the Nagaji ancestry's default (mouth-based) native unarmed attack.
As a proud member of the PF2e Bards Need To Get Spookier Club, I really like Occult casting for them, honestly? As other folks upthread have mentioned, the Occult list is really broad, thematically (and each individual bard only gets a relatively small portion of it), so your Bard can be a very conventional, uplifting sort, with maybe Shelyn as a muse, running stuff like soothe, charming spells, and a couple of sonic spells... or you can play one of a much wider range of concepts - a spirit-speaker binding ghosts and stirring the lower souls of the living, or a Lovecraftian cultist of the squamous pipers (Summon Aberration is the unique Occult summon for a reason), or any of the many many ways to do a "warrior muse" bard that aren't "PF1e Skald Again" (some ideas: drunkard with a good right hook and a head full of drinking songs, warrior-poet in the Ancient Chinese model, a bagpipe-tooting battlefield coordinator, or any sort of person who finds a unique emotional release in the middle of a good fight). All a "warrior muse" means, mechanically, is that you can stretch a magic a little further when you're in a scrap, and there's a lot of concepts that that can support.
I don't think they became homogeneous in PF2, I think the intended narrative is that a fleshwarp has so little in common with whatever their original ancestry's physical form was that you're functionally a completely distinct creature. I think that narrative could be sold more effectively if they had an Adopted-like effect to still get more cultural feats from their previous ancestry, and I think a less-completely-Fleshwarped versatile heritage would absolutely be appropriate as well. The intended narrative for the Fleshwarp ancestry is that you did in fact get mutated so hard that effectively nothing of your original traits remains, and the majority of the canonical fleshwarped NPCs we know about who weren't born that way actually have memory problems. While there's justification for Fleshwarp being a distinct ancestry, it would certainly make sense for them to also have a level one feat to grab adopted ancestry, and maybe make it easier for them to pass as their original ancestry (similar to Skeleton's one).
I haven't found that stuff too complicated at mid-to-high levels, from the GM's chair. However, I'm really lucky, because I've got a table of invested players who will actually track their debuffs on the monsters for me (one of them also handles initiative and double-checks damage, which is nice). However, this is unusual as all get-out for most ttrpg groups, especially those coming in from D&D. Definitely feels more complex to read than to play PF2e, from my recollections of the first few times I'd looked over the rules.
And speaking of capturing a visual or aesthetic idea while skirting the right side of coypright law, I'd also like to once more ask for an aberration versatile heritage. A, you've been touched by great old ones or the Dominion of the Black in a way that nephilim or geniekin have. My personal want there would be for a "similar to but legally distinct from" mind flayers but you could do a lot of fun stuff with that all the same. I would like to once more nominate Fleshwarp as the ancestry most deserving of also getting a versatile heritage when remastered - a hybrid fleshwarp would give us a really good aberration option in the same vein as hungerseed or geniekin.
Considering they do seem to have a fair few elements of continuous culture, I think dragons probably do generally keep their eggs close, and probably their young hatchlings as well (maybe dragons can start hearing things while they're still in the shell, like in Temeraire). But the main thing to remember is that dragons are sapient people, if generally very large and predatory ones, so the primary factor in how a dragon parent will treat their clutch, or any unusual eggs that slip in, is going to be that dragon's specific personality. Some dragons who don't want to look after eggs but find themselves with a clutch might scatter them around in reasonably suitable locations, so people might have to deal with surprise wyrmlings, others might be more inclined to actual childcare, and it wouldn't surprise me to find a dragon who actually quite likes having adopted children running around!
Counterpoint: I would like the Player's Guide because I wanna build characters!
Think the tech book will have SROs? I really hope so! Do em like Awakened Animal, with a customisable size and heritages based on purpose, but y'know, robots!
I suspect that, because portals generally open in both directions, on a geological timescale the amount of stuff moving between the planes basically comes to equilibrium? Like, there's an enormous portal in the middle of one of the oceans - shows up for six months every decade or so - which flows from the Universe to the Plane of Water, and that thing's offset like 80% of all currently extant mortal-made water portals, or something.
No, solitary bees are bees that aren't eusocial at all - no hives or workers for the entire species! That's actually the overwhelming majority of all bees on earth. As for a niche as a heritage, there's a few options - solitary bees include basically all the novel nest-making bees, like mason bees, carpenter bees, and leafcutter bees, so giving a solitary heritage a crafting focus could work. Alternatively, as solitary bees with stings don't die from stinging (no queen to keep carrying on the hive's genes), a sting-based natural attack would also be an option.
I wouldn't say bees are loyal, actually - if a queen bee sucks at her job the hive will raise a replacement and kill her. For IRL bees, the queen isn't actually in charge, she's just the gonads. Having some opportunities for intra-hive scheming would make thriae a lot more distinct from generic fantasy/sci-fi hive insectoids - adding politics certainly made Starfinder Formorians more interesting! I'd also like to see a solitary bee heritage - most real-life bee species are actually solitary, so it'd be a fun little nod.
If it's the entirety of the Occult RK + Earn Income, that's definitely too broad for a Lore. Maybe instead it works kinda like Heraldry Lore, but for secret societies and unusual codes?
I would think Erastil's services are less like a Sunday service at an Earth Christian church, and rather more like a church potluck plus community discussion - feeding everyone is an excellent exercise in community-building, and he's always struck me as more of the works than faith sort of deity. Still with stories of the deity, but with a certain amount of shared meal and possibly small-town town hall stuff as well. As for other core deities, I think that Shelynite temple would have a wide range of art... not quite classes? Like, life drawing sessions, potter's workshops, and (rather improvisational) music events. Not super structured, but there's a signboard by the door with a schedule, and just about anyone can talk to the priest to add something within their own creative talents.
Wow, thank you all so much for such a great book! I literally cannot pick a favourite statblock, there's so many excellent options!
Athamaru can already be stinky - Emit Defensive Odor is a 1st-level ancestry feat with a whole feat chain of stinky after it. So I guess as long as your teenage self smelled like fish...?
Might I suggest calling that "Pharmaceutical Lore" instead? Much clearer, and doesn't feel like you're sticking two lores together.
Oh, Draugr! Yeah, some drowned dead would make for a fun skeleton heritage, even if you can kinda approximate it right now by sticking undine on there. It would be fun if a Draugr heritage, rather than gaining the aquatic trait, just straight up didn't need to breathe at all (for game balance reasons, basic undead benefits do not in fact remove your reliance on breathing). Have some feats for the swim speed and being stinky.
Yeah, all the Div weaknesses are extremely cool - they feel like some Peak Folklore Nonsense, and I mean that as a sincere compliment. I am curious to see more interesting hierarchy abilities for Devils - I was kinda hoping coarti would have some sort of "Superior's Voice" ability, where they act as a very literal mouthpiece for whichever higher-rank devil they are couriering messages for, but oh well.
I went back and looked at Aquatic Adventures for reasons, and I really hope that a Casmaron book does something interesting with the canonical Fantasy El Niño and La Niña system that the Embaral Ocean apparently has. As someone who lives in a climate very strongly affected by those currents IRL, seeing Casmaron deal with the flood and storm or fire and drought years would make for interesting climate and environment worldbuilding.
Tunnelflood Kobold already exists, we just need a way for it to grab some gills to go with the swim speed. And I suggested all of those other ones (except Dragur. What's a dragur?) upthread.
Got started with 1e because I got invited to a game. Enjoyed the table but not so much the system (sorry, I just cannot stand the 3.5-descended action system). Got invited by another friend to join in on the 2e playtest, had a great time, and then didn't think about the system again for like 2 years. Eventually acquired the core books for 2e in a bundle, and am now running my own campaign, and playing in another.
Aquatic Adventures, despite the name, isn't actually an adventure book - it's in the vein of stuff like Guns & Gears or Howl of the Wild, more of a big book of lore (did you know that the Embaral Ocean has an El Niño and La Niña system? I really hope they do something with that), aquatic player options, and monsters. So a 2e version, with a remastered Undine, some of the 1e aquatic ancestries updated, and some specialised archetypes, spellshapes and magic stuff for being underwater is definitely a good option. And, while I would prefer that we get a Wet Stuff book before getting an underwater AP, but I don't think the situation is as dire as you're suggesting. Put "strongly recommended: Athamaru, Azarketi, Merfolk. Recommended: Seaweed Leshy, Undine, Swimming Awakened Animal" in the Player's Guide, and give everyone with Athletics Underwater Marauder for free and you're most of the way to making it work.
I really want an Ocean Stuff book. We've got enough aquatic ancestries to do a whole adventuring party without doubling up, but we've only got the Player Core and GM Core paragraph each for underwater rules. A version of Aquatic Adventures for 2e, especially with a full suite of underwater hazards, would be very cool, or even a Lost Omens: Wide Seas. Give us a Grindylow Goblin, an Aquatic Elf, or maybe a Triton or Cecaelia, and maybe a Fleshwarp heritage for aquatic stuff - algollthu and krakens both appear to do fleshwarping. Maybe a spellshape to do fire effects as steam, so they work underwater? And of course a bunch of magic items and spells for underwater stuff (I'd love to see some rituals based on real sailor superstitions, too - whistle up the wind and blow down a storm!)
Nah, Phoenix is a Bard , actually - he's actually way more reliant on bluffing and persuasion to then use a piece of evidence to catch a witness in a lie and force them to cop to the actual truth. Plus he's a total theatre kid! I'd put him as an enigma muse bard, heavy on the investigative and utility spells (cross-examining a witness's pet parrot is probably slightly less nuts on Golarion than Earth...), and a surprisingly high Con and Fort (guy face-tanks some pretty ridiculous stuff... might just be dice luck though). There is actually an Empiricism Investigator in AA, though it isn't Phoenix. Miles Edgeworth is actually the investigator, focusing on how witnesses might lie, but the evidence never does.
Part of the reason I suggested looking into Turkish coffee specifically is because the Impossible Lands book calls the coffee preparations "intricate," and a Turkish-style preparation of finely ground (sometimes on the spot) coffee and water heated specifically in a basin of hot sand is the most intricate coffee ritual I'm aware of that doesn't require the invention of the espresso machine. (you can also absolutely do a less elaborate preparation over a fire, for cowboy coffee) Some other culinary ideas: remember couscous comes in both sweet (often served with honey, sesame and fruit, particularly dates) and savoury (with vegetables, chickpeas, and stew) - it's a very versatile dish, as befits a major staple. The mentions of thick milky tea being drunk by the industrial workers makes me think of spiced chai (you could possibly also lace it with something with a little more kick, hidden in the spice mix and picked up off the black market...). Actually, I bet they keep the tea hot by putting it on the boilers or steam pipes, because the factory barons sure as hells aren't shelling out for an employee kitchen! The agriculture section mentions figs, pomegranates, and dates, so generally Middle Eastern and North African cuisine seems like a good starting point - but it also mentions avocados, so getting some South American stylings is also a good plan (I don't know if there is corn, though. The eternal question of Golarion's Fantasy Columbian Exchange!).
The Impossible Lands book also mentions people in Alkenstar City having couscous and green tea for breakfast, which suggests North African culinary stylings. The mentions of elaborate coffee rituals during Surgetime also makes me think of Turkish coffee - actually, considering how into coffee and tea Alkenstar is, going for a very coffeehouse-and-cafe style dining style seems appropriate. Maybe add some flatbread, yogurt, and richly flavoured stews (not too capsaicin-spicy though - I would bet the Brighite lot sort "enough spice to make you cry" onto the "illogical foods" list)
There's actually very little in the way of Mwangi aesthetics in Alkenstar for one very simple reason - the bloody enormous mountain range in the way. It increases the effective distance between the Impossible Lands and the Mwangi Expanse from "right next to each other" to "long and incredibly difficult mountain crossing, or long and incredibly dangerous underground travel". Makes immigration a little difficult! As for a more blended aesthetic, how about waistcoats with back panels of Jalmeray silks (perhaps in the style of watered silks, or shot silk with a pattern), or a fashion for skirts printed with Katapeshi techniques? From Nex, there might be enchanted fabrics, like the glamourweave of Eberron, or strange, custom-built fleshwarp pets (definitely not also designed as scrying targets, oh no!). Geb mostly exports food, so I'd expect their cultural influence to be more in the direction of "default staple grains" rather than more overt blending.
Awakened Animal isn't actually an effective translation of most of the anthro-adjacent suggestions in this thread, I think? Awakened Animal's big strength and weakness is that you're Rare. Trending towards being a one-off weirdo is great for outsider narratives (see also: Yaoguai, Yaksha, Android), but if you want to be part of a people , it's not a particularly good pick. Thinking about what the culture of the hypothetical Ancestry is like half the fun! (or figuring out how Paizo'd rework 1e races or monsters into weirder, more diverse cultures)
I have the sneaking suspicion we'll get a proper Jotun species name once the book actually drops. Calling a new fantasy creature by a made-up name in a press release months before the book drops sounds like a great way to confuse people. Anyway, I'm loving how weird and biologically grounded the Jotunblood look - I know it makes them very different from giants, but these days proper giants are like half-elemental, rather than being flesh-and-blood creatures. The improvised armour is also very cool, and I'd love to hear more details about their native plane - are the Jotunblood from an Outer or Inner Plane, or are they from a parallel universe entirely?
Thanks! Good to know. (The scroll shenanigans in question were seeing if Free Archetyping for skill increases could do something interesting)
So, I was looking at doing some scroll shenanigans, as one does, and I had a look at the Scroll Thaumaturgy Feat.
Your multidisciplinary study of magic means you know how to activate the magic in scrolls with ease. You can activate scrolls of any magical tradition, using your thaumaturge class DC for the scroll's DC, rather than a particular spell DC. If a spell is on the spell list for multiple traditions, you choose which tradition to use at the time you activate the scroll. You can draw and activate scrolls with the same hand holding an implement, much like you can for esoterica. If your skill proficiency would give you a better spell DC than your Thaumaturge Class DC, can you use that higher DC with Scroll Thaumaturgy's ability to bypass Trick Magic Item?
It's not RAW but IMO you should be able to drink a potion (or I guess inject an amp) that is stored in your cheek pouch with a single interact / manipulate rather than having to ready it first. After all, it is already in your mouth / in contact with your skin! But that is a pretty big power boost... That seems like a pretty good idea for a higher-level ancestry feat, to get some action compression on consumable use!
Your GM is free to rule in favour of restricting mixed heritages to humanoids only, but I'm gonna be honest, putting a mixed heritage on a former-Humanoid ancestry like Skeleton or Automaton mostly seems like a fun way to flavour having originally been an elf or orc, without having to futz about with Adopted Ancestry. As for poppets, maybe you were made by and in the image of whichever ancestry you take?
Well Sniping Duo the 2e archetype only requires the character actually taking the archetype feats to designate another character as their spotter to get all the benefits - there's no actual resource requirement on the part of the spotter at all. So, sticking to that sort of model, but maybe focusing more on movement and repositioning is a solid idea for an archetype.
It seems like what people want out of a "play as someone's animal companion/familiar/minion" is actually a bunch of fun co-ordinated action options, which might be better represented as an archetype? Some kind of teamwork manoeuvres focused thing, like a melee version of sniper duo.
Considering how much the Player's Guide emphasises Warfare Lore as the most relevant lore, I think it's pretty likely that there's either gonna be a bunch of opportunities for you to interrupt with some strategy, or that after Book 1 the AP rapidly becomes entangled with some manner of military campaign, with the PCs running around behind enemy lines as a small scouting group and causing trouble.
I want an Untamed Druid battle form that doesn't scale size too big, or maybe a feat that reduces the size of a battlefront. As cool as it is to transform into a huge or gargantuan monster and stomp around... Sometimes you need to be regular bear sized to fit in a dungeon or tavern. Yeah, it'd be really nice to have an actual high-level Medium battle form before the literal capstone shapeshifter feat. Some extra forms for some of the spells could also be nice - plant form literally only has two options, for example, and monstrosity form only has three!
Honestly, I'd love to see SOMEWHERE do one of my favourite little historical artefacts - the moving royal or imperial court, and I vaguely recall somewhere in central Asia historically having done that (not having any luck tracking down a citation, though). An itinerant court would make for an interesting justification for having such a widespread network of roads - even if any individual ruler is short-sighted and greedy, maintaining that public infrastructure is still gonna happen, just so that the ruler's travels aren't a colossal pain in the neck. Otherwise, love to see more about trade goods, Keleshite magical practices (are there spells and rituals limited by the fact that there's literally three mines on the planet for one of the required gemstones?), and any weird ancestries hanging around.
So, I honestly thought someone else would beat me to making this thread, but apparently we've gotten all the way past book 1's release without it! The Player's Guide gives a pretty broad variety of options, considering one could be a hero from pretty much anywhere in the Inner Sea, as long as your character cares at least a little about Kyonin. I've got two ideas right now - the first is a Aiuvarin Gnome Fey sorcerer, inspired by a fun cover of the ballad Tam Lin (amusingly, the elven parent is actually the Tam Lin equivalent, the gnome is the one who gathered up the family lore, and went and tricked a faerie queen). A second-generation adventurer feels like a fun dynamic to play with, and I haven't given sorcerer a go yet. The other option I'm considering is a leaf order druid fungus leshy named Hyphae Song - the player's guide mentions that a lot of fungus leshies have a bad rap in Kyonin, for Treerazer-related reasons, but one of the (many) cool things fungus do, IRL, is act as symbiotes to trees, both helping them absorb nutrients, and to communicate with the rest of the forest. Playing about with that in the Fungus Demon AP seemed like an interesting time. So, what sort of heroes are you thinking of bringing, and are they new characters or returning from a previous AP?
Well, the freely available playtest document gives them a 2nd-level feature, Rune Crafter, which gives them the Magical Crafting feat, even if they lack the prerequisites, and also gives them the formulas for ALL fundamental armor, shield, and weapon runes. Also they don't need a formula book for any rune formula, they just keep it in their heads. At 9th level they then gain a feature that increases their degree of success on any downtime check to craft runes, which is a level beyond what any other class can do on pretty much any kind of check. I would say that playtest Runesmith is quite possibly the Best Class At Crafting Runes, and I don't see any reason why that would need to be changed in the final class.
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