Oragnejedi42's page

It might be helpful to ignore the 1E Kineticist in designing the new one.
1E burn was a mess that at best made the class hard to comprehend.

That said, some feats that gave conditions like drained for some above-average power seems to be a part of the class fantasy of an channeler whose plugged directly into one or more elemental planes. Oracles are cursed via being plugged into the Divine via jumper cables, having some kind of "power for a price" mechanic keeps adds that to kineticist while making it optional.

Another vote for medium armor. Locking in light seems to push the class towards Dex, despite adding options to encourage Str. Playing a Str-based kineticist seems like your ticket to Crit City getting punched on the regular.

Oragnejedi42 wrote:

If someone at your table says "I don't have dice" is it unreasonable to offer them some?

I'd be more accurate to say something like, "I didn't bring any d12's for my great axe."

And then someone else say, "Here, roll these 2d6. It's better on average and 1d12 is too swingy anyway."

And in the event no one has a d12 that day, that's a serviceable workaround in a pinch. It's not about "my game is better" or fighting the edition wars. RPGs are collaborative in nature. It's a very cynical worldview that offering help when someone expresses a problem is bad.

Oragnejedi wrote:

If I encounter a broad "I don't like X about 5E" social media post or it comes up in person, I might say "these systems do X that fixes/avoids that. You could try those or just steal them and add them to the game." The reaction ranges from "cool thanks" to "don't tell me what to do, you're not my real dad" depending on the person.

I would posit that it is completely reasonable to just not comment. It is possible that the poster might follow up with a specific question "does any other system do X better?"

In addition "I don't like X about 5E" is not a question, it is a statement. As such it does not require or even solicit any response. Even more reason to not comment.

If someone at your table says "I don't have dice" is it unreasonable to offer them some?

siegfriedliner wrote:

... being told that you might want to try pathfinder 2e which fixes the problem your talking about in your piece in my mind counts as fair comment.

I agree... depending on how it's presented.

"Y'know, X Game handles Issue Y that you have a problem with."

is a lot more palatable than

"Get out of the dark ages already, put on your adult pants, and just start playing X Game. You can thank us later."

Try as you might, you can control how someone will respond.

Also in a celebrity's case (internet famous or otherwise), seeing "Try X Game" fifty to 500 times in a row would start to grate on anybody.

There's definitely a difference between being asked, social media, and being a voice with a comment's section. I don't think I'd ever tell a content creator what to do unless they called out specifically for it and even then I'd have to feel real clever on a subject.

If I encounter a broad "I don't like X about 5E" social media post or it comes up in person, I might say "these systems do X that fixes/avoids that. You could try those or just steal them and add them to the game." The reaction ranges from "cool thanks" to "don't tell me what to do, you're not my real dad" depending on the person.

Oragnejedi42 wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

We received group Infamy in a scenario because we were attacked by enraged bystanders, who nevertheless dealt subdual damage. The first PC acting was a sorcerer who used a Reach Chill Touch. The target bystander crit failed their save and died. So, the whole group got 1 point of Infamy, including those who only used subdual attacks and those who did not even attack.

And there was absolutely zero advantage / rewards compensating the group infamy awarded by the scenario.

Should the GM have warned the player before he used the Chill Touch ?

According to the Guide to Organized Play, the GM must warn players that their action will cause them to earn Infamy. They only earn the infamy if they go through with it.

The GM thinks this applies only to evil/criminal acts decided by the PCs, and not for Infamy that is "awarded" by the scenario.

The guide doesn't list exemptions to requiring a warning. If something you do would cause infamy, they're supposed to give some kind of clear warning.

Hey all, had a suggestion for the Boon purchase list for whoever is responsible for that.
Last weekend, a PC died and the player reacted somewhat poorly. In trying to help them after go through the website to see if they had the points to bring back the character it was frustrating to find that one boon in the list. It was sort of tucked in the middle.

1. Is it possible to slide that one up the list so its easier to guide frustrated players to find?

2. Is this something others would want or have experience with?

Thanks!

I may be in the minority here, but i do not see a problem with neutral societies condoning slavery. Mostly because it is shown, times and times again in many lore and monster manual books that "Neutral" can mean "does a lot of terrible s**t but is not mean about it". One of the aforementioned terrible s**ts is looking at evil and doing nothing. With all due respect to Desmond Tutu, in the world of Golarion he is wrong. Cosmologically wrong. Neutrality in the face of oppression does not make you evil, it makes you neutral. There are many beings made of pure Law,Neutrality or Chaos that spend their entire immortal existence watching oppression and doing nothing, and not a molecule of Evil enters their bodies. And that's without looking at the genocides they carry out on the regular, while still...

The problem with the idea that their apathy is their neutrality is that they aren't apathetic. If they were apathetic, it wouldn't be enshrined into law or protected by these states if they were just "neutral" or "apathetic" about it. These nations systemically allow and uphold it. Doing nothing would mean doing nothing, but they've done a thing. If they were really neutral and the Bellflowers rolled up and sprung a bunch of slaves, they'd just shrug. That would be apathy. However, they enforce it violently. Which isn't apathy or neutrality. It's picking the side of owning a sentient being with the threat of violence and that side is evil.

Cosmic neutral entities, to know knowledge, don't typically start from a structural basis of "it's okay to own mortals". They're disconnected from it because mortals are bugs and they can't be bothered. Nation-states are made of people and are bothered when someone starts prodding about why owning people is okay.. That is not neutral.

It is worth considering why "slavery" comes up much more frequently in discussions about Golarion than discussions about similar fantasy settings.

Then consider "this isn't really desirable" and then do something about it.

The thing I noticed reading the different lore books over the years for Golarion compared to other settings is that it just kinda...sticks slavery in places and tags it as part of several lawful neutral societies. Someone mentioned the practices of the dark elves in Warhammer but that's treated as a reason to oppose them. Slavery is commonplace in 40k, but there's no "good guys" in 40k and its just another signifier that "yup, everything is a crapsack".

Golarion has a bunch of nations that just do slavery and its treated as being fine and at least one PFS scenario where you're expected to go and just negotiate with slavers rather than anything to oppose their activities. Given how Paizo works hard in other areas to knock down some of the sketchy tropes born from the genre, its always felt like slavery's portrayal boarders on someone's special interest inclusion.

I don't think slavery can't be portrayed or used as a plot element. I think treating it as a recurring element in non-evil societies is a lack of creative writing. Golarion is knock-off Earth and they just copypasted slavery into their corollaries and treated it as something the setting handles with indifference.

Two votes for an adventure just seeing Arcadia. Seems like a fertile ground to do new things without having to lean hard on the other game's tropes as hard. Something with local folks, local problems, and no connection to the Inner Sea region. The little we've had so far has me hungry for more.

An adventure (maybe a PFS scenario) explaining how Druids became legal in Rahadoum between editions. It's nation that has an interesting concept but all the subtlety of a ranty youtuber. The setting seems to treat the nation as "these people are bad for kicking religious people out" while also having lots of examples of "look at all the bad things these religious people get up to given the chance."

Okay, let's have some fun.

-Key ability score. Just make it a free boost. If I'm a wizard, I don't need you put the bump into Int for me. It opens up a world of possibilities if a Champion could make Cha their key ability or Druid could make there's strength. Heck, an Investigator with Wisdom as their key ability makes a lot of sense.

- The Orc/Tengu attribute spread of 1 set boost and one free boost. Something about it feels off. Not so much that I think they're bad, but it just causes that itch of being the worst of middle between the other two options.

-Alignment. I get Pathfinder has to lean into some things from the other game, but this one can go.

-The cost of consumables/crafting consumables.

-the lack of a generic meta-magic feat list. A lot of page space is wasted on reprints of meta-magic feats between classes. Sure, having some class-specific meta feats is cool. But maybe just have "yeah, everyone can these at X levels to save space going forward."

-Warpriests. This may be an organized play thing where you can rebuild your character before lvl 2. But every lvl 1 warpriest I GMed for pre-covid was rebuilt into something else at 2. Is something about it off? I looks off given the key ability score and odd prof progression.

Drow never really felt like they fit well in Golarion and they typically feel like an artifact from the other game. Without some substantial retcons and reimagining, I think they should be left aside in general and doubly so as an ancestry.

I think doing a pulpy weird science ancestry from underground would be snazzy. Maybe with access to a limited borrow ability via ancestry feats. Just...not a reptilian species due to a laundry list of real world conspiracies.

Maybe I'm missing something, but aren't society scenarios supposed to be nominally accomplishable by a table of appropriate-level pregens?

If an item you find gives you a nice bump (bravo's brew), that's something you have to find and doesn't solve the problem. A 5-10% bump doesn't really break anything. It might make the alchemist's preparations a bit less valuable, but so does preparing anti-undead bombs if none show up. Meanwhile, it rewards players for paying attention and interacting with the scenario rather than just waiting for the next map to load. Plenty of times I've seen players just forget they found a useful magic or just walking into the next room without going over for anything.

Given how little reputation seems to do these days, consumables give players something to look for that does something. Given that worn magic items need to be invested to do anything, a consumable represents a resource rather than just a treasure bundle with a name.

If the item is needed to be in the adventure (water breathing) then to completable by pregens (or really for it to go anywhere) you just need to hand it out as part of the conceit of the story. A "play the adventure" tax just means nobody signs up once word gets around that "you need to buy X number of magic items to play".