I just recently got my Lost Omens Character Guide and have found I have trouble with the pronunciation of the several names in the Magaambya section. Specifically, Uzunjati, Magaambya, Aengasi, and Demuwe. How are they meant to be pronounced?
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LOWG seemed pretty in line with the player companion and campaign setting lines IMO. Amazing art, amazing lore, a mixed bag of player options. Pretty thoroughly in line with the player companion line, with the exception of being more expensive and more durable. When I get the LOCG and time to process it I'll see if it seems different, but from what I've seen from pictures and spoilers it looks about the same. Amazing art, amazing lore, a mixed bag of player options. I have my LOCG now, I've been going through it and I think I slightly underestimated it in this initial assessment. The LOWG and LOCG are, in my opinion, slightly better than the Player Companions and Campaign Settings for PF1e. LOCG has several feats and features that I would base an entire character around and very few feats that I don't think were worth the page space, normally I'm used to the other lines having maybe 1-2 options I would base a character around and 3-4 options I wouldn't consider interacting with (generally traits). LOCG has substantially more defining options than that, and not substantially more duds. That isn't to say the book isn't amazing art/lore and a mixed bag of rules, it definitely is. I just think these bags have a better mix than the former options. I hope these books are the standard for the Lost Omens line and not above the par.
I actually rather like the Scrollmaster archetype. The dedication would be useful for my groups, we do often have someone taking notes in character but we take low-quality notes IRL so having a feat that lets us quiz the GM for a bit is nice. And a bonus to remember clues that could have happened 6 months ago IRL and anywhere between two weeks and several years in-game is nice. We are a forgetful bunch. Later on, Lore Seeker provides rather useful spells, Unravel Mysteries I suspect won't come up much for my groups because we tend to decipher when we have time rather than mid-dungeon, and Font of Knowledge is my favorite bard feat, but for anyone. Overall, I like it but I can see why some groups wouldn't benefit much from it.
They come back with enemies. Psychopomps that were not so willing to let them back, devils coming to repossess their soul, angels claiming their death was part of the good outcome and needs to be preserved, ghosts jealous of them getting the fast track back to life, or whatever else fits the campaign. As the party rests these enemies start to catch up, and the character faces continued assaults from their enemy until they did again, this time for good. They come back as a construct made of their own body. They can only be healed using the processes used to repair flesh constructs (which require raw materials of a grizzly sort) and will be destroyed upon death.
We actually had that campfire scene on camera for my Return of the Runelords game. My character said he'd willingly come back twice, third strike and they are out. The paladin said to bring him back if the group still had work to do. The summoner wanted to come back if at all possible, the brawler if and only if his parents were still alive, and the cleric dodged the question entirely.
As for the Mask Familiar thematically it's amazing. Who doesn't want a cool talking Tiki or Animal mask. Thinking Crash Bandicoot here. How ever that's all it really is, is a thematic familiar. When you take it off it still takes the form of an animal. So people who take it litterly wasted a feat so their familiar can look like a mask. That's not worth a class feat, and as a DM if someone really wanted a mask familiar I'd give it to them, but that's me. Everyone but gnomes needs to spend a class feat to get a familiar. Well, gnomes and wizards, but the wizard investment is bigger if they don't use a feat. Mask Familiar is great if you A) want a familiar, B) aren't a class that gets familiars, and C) aren't a gnome. Just as fast as multicasting for a familiar, but an RP prerequisite instead of an ability score prerequisite. It is no more of a wasted feat than Basic Arcana (Familiar).
Invert their positive/negative energy interaction, make them susceptible to good damage of they were not evil, and give weakness equal to 1/2 level against positive damage. They came back alive, but have one foot left in the grave. Maybe talk to the player about them turning on the party at a crucial moment, either some complex plot they had running since the resurrection or them snapping when placed under a specific pressure. Maybe make this a permanent turning point, the critical failure is supposed to be worse than death so having them come back fine afterwards might not cut it. A significant rebuild to the character maybe. The barbarian loses touch with the fury of dragons, but gains a connection with the spirit world they returned from. The cleric came back but only in the condition they abandon their deity and work for the Lady of Graves. Or the Prince of Lies. The champion was bent on liberating slaves, but after death to devils they now only desire vengeance. (Swapping to spirit totem, New deity, and a hypothetical revenge cause for champions). Lots to work with really.
I forgot to specify that swift bite takes 2-actions.
Fighters and Barbarians are the classes I'd use it for mechanically. Gives you a bit of spellcasting without any pesky ability score prerequisites, just ignore spells with saving throws or counteract mechanics. 2 feats for Shield, Jump, False Life, and Haste is a decent trade to me. The later ones I'm a bit iffy on, but Warding Magic (evocation) will probably come up a lot if you need to get another dedication later.
I made a self-winding clockwork doggo.
Eh, if they just keep trying to publish the high-end level of feats it can quickly become a game of trying to one-up yourself, which makes power creep much more problematic. Also, I'm not sure I can speak to the lacklusterness of feats in LOCG, but I will say some of the lackluster options from LOWG actually seem decent in the context they are designed for, it just isn't a common one. Specifically thinking of the Magic Warrior anti-divination feat, it may apply to others as well. I'm a game full of intrigue and spies bonuses against divination are great, those just see not your typical PF adventure so the bonuses are mediocre. as for quotes and formatting: If you look below the text box to post with, there is a line that says "How to format your text" and a show button. That has the syntax to format text with, and you can use the preview button to make sure you have quotes and whatnot correct. If you want to reply to a specific post you can also click reply in the upper right corner of the post and the site will automatically prepare a text box quoting the post. Hope this helps.
LOWG seemed pretty in line with the player companion and campaign setting lines IMO. Amazing art, amazing lore, a mixed bag of player options. Pretty thoroughly in line with the player companion line, with the exception of being more expensive and more durable. When I get the LOCG and time to process it I'll see if it seems different, but from what I've seen from pictures and spoilers it looks about the same. Amazing art, amazing lore, a mixed bag of player options.
Paizo's GM screen for 2e is an amazing quick reference. Conditions, DCs, and quick rundown on exploration mode are all pretty nice to have right in front of you at all times. Easily one of my favorite references.
I can't actually recall encountering truly wild elementals personally. Most instances I can remember involve the elementals being bound to the material plane, and either still being location-locked or else having escaped but not having a way home. The latter case veers closer to wild elementals and them being incredibly aggressive makes sense IMO. They were abducted and stranded on a strange alien world filled with meaty dopplegangers of the fauna they are used to, cannot communicate with most people or find any way home, and have only experienced sinister forces that tried to erode their will and weaponize them. They will be rather defensive, though a character with the right elemental language might be able to talk them down from a fight.
Thrune murdered 100 people to create an artifact, which implies that they did not murder 100 people just because. If Abrogail Thrune is as intelligent as the lore suggests, the laws of Cheliax are arranged in such a way that the creation of this artifact can be prioritized above the lives of 100 citizens of the state, and those lives can be confiscated via execution to create the artifact competely lawfully. The difference, in my mind, between CE and LE rulers is that CE rulers will kill people and then pass the justification that says they are fine doing so, while LE people have already arranged the law code so make every instance of murder they need to commit perfectly lawful ahead of time.
I denied a resurrect in Rise of the Runelords. The character was based off the idea of a gnome with a rather particular animal companion. Early book 1, said animal companion died to poison, the gnome was crushed by this but carried on. Sometime around book 3 or 4 they learned to teleport and on one of our shopping trips (because we took teleport-shopping trips to gear up in PF1) the gnome returned home, explained what had happened, and returned with another of that particular animal companion. Late book 5, the gnome and animal companion both died, with the animal companion dying to poison from a prismatic spray. The gnome's spirit was crushed, having let down their two best friends and witnessed both die to the same effect; they were unwilling to return to life just to let someone else down like that.
In-world, you can say the bandages and splints have been set as best they can, but will need to be adjusted in an hour as the wounds start to stabilize before you can do much more. If it didn't do anything now, the wound was more severe than your experience as a medic, but after 50 minutes of rest as the body relaxes some it may be more workable.
I'd guess their subclass option would veer closer to alchemist than rogue, providing fixed benefits at later levels but not giving flexibility in the key ability score (which I suspect will be Int). I'd assume they are trained in medicine rather than thievery because I think forensics is closer to investigator things than anything thievery has going for it baseline. Otherwise I pretty much agree with your assessment. I really hope they get sword canes (and more importantly, that we see sword canes in the APG).
You could just rename it far-shooting instead of clumsy.
I like to think the critical failure on Commune is you asking Nethys what happened and him telling you point-blank.
Here's a mock up of the Big Bad Wolf The Big Bad Wolf Creature 5
We at least know that his death was at the hands of someone else now. How that connects to the Eye remains unclear.We don't know that he was canonically murdered yet, according to James Jacobs. AKA a product's sales text or early desctription for a solicitation isn't automatically canonical.
What Zwordman says. Grab a familiar and give it the ‘Manual Dexterity’ ability. Turns the 2-action reload into a 1-action reload. This does mean you need to grab the Animal Accomplice Gnome Ancestry Feat or Multiclass into a caster for a Familiar though. If you don’t want to use the familiar for anything other than reloading, and aren’t planning to dip into casting, you can spend the other ability it can get on Scent or Darkvision for a bit more utility. Admittedly familiars are a bit lacking in the what they can give in a niche case like this. There probably needs to be an action for the crossbow to change hands though, unless trading gear is a free action.
I like the thought of families of the Quick in Geb having heirloom guns as one of the ways to secure a lineage, using them as deterrents for when ghoulish cravings supersede the Dead Laws protecting them. Also seems like a fun way to set up a shotgun zombie-killing horror action scene, the PCs are trapped in a house besieged by zombies and grab the wall-mounted musket for this very purpose. I also like the idea that alchemical scholars in major colleges around the Inner Sea (like Oenopion and Lepidstadt) getting guns. Gunpowder+magic chemistry= shenanigans.
One of my first ideas of why the Magaambya messed about in New Thassilon is to understand the key differences between the Thassilonian and Magaambyan magical traditions and theories. Thassilonian magic was some of the most advanced magic on Golarion pre-earthfall and Magaambyan magic was the some of the first advanced magic to arise after, so comparing and contrasting could lead to great breakthroughs.
Why in the world would you want to leave? In addition to their heavy presence in the Mwangi Expanse, the Magaambya has begun setting up satellite colleges to the north—after the explosion (many times literal) of arcane events and anomalies that have occurred in Avistan, from the closure of the Worldwound to the appearance of New Thassilon to the destruction caused by the Whispering Tyrant, the scholars of the south have decided it’s about time they go see what on earth is happening up there!
I could have a totally false understanding of how leather armor works, but I thought the Eagle Knight art in LOWG was wearing leather (or other leather-based) armor. In PF1 I would have matched up that image with Parade Armor or an Armored Coat. Also, in the ISWG there is an eagle knight halfling wearing full plate. Also, Google seems to think eagle knights wear armor. Pretty sure that Andoran knows how armor works and can implement it.
I think the real question is, if Barbatos exists in Golarian, does Batman exist in some sense? If I have my timeline right, Golarion year 4719 AR maps to earth year 1919 CE, and the first batman comic was released in 1939 according to a quick google search. So it seems we are about 20 years too early.
First round of updates is tentatively scheduled for late October and as Blave said paizo knows about this issue. If it gets changed, expect it in a few weeks (and it probably will change).
Based on Pathfinder Publisher Erik Mona's multi-year, multi-group office Pathfinder campaign, The Dead God's Hand takes new players and Game Masters on a deadly adventure filled with dungeon exploration, ancient mysteries, and phantasmagoric tests that see them reliving events from the life of Aroden, the dead god of humanity whose murder triggered the beginning of the current age! I like the idea that the alghollthu (aboleth and co.) didn't have anything to do with Aroden's death personally. I prefer to think that it takes more power than most individual deities have, barring deities of death and destruction, to kill a proper deity. The alghollthu would never ally with the deities because they believe themselves to be strictly better than deities in every way, seeing the material plane's deities as upstarts and little more. They do have the power to kill deities, but I think the fallout from them exercising such power would be a bit more severe than just opening the Eye of Abendego, considering the last time they used it they broke the planet. Instead I prefer the idea that it was a conspiracy of a couple deities working together to kill him. That or him willingly dying one way or another. Or going into hiding permanently. I think if it were the alghollthu we would see a lot more fallout.
Nonlethal is a plus for me. I don't plan to use illusions on constructs in the first place, and I always prefer making the choice of whether or not the enemy lives after the fight rather than in the fight. They may have information, or need to be freed to send a message, or not need to die. If they do need to die you can stab them to death after you knock them out, but if they need to not die you can't stab them to life after you kill them.
You can't homebrew items in the system as written. That's intentional. You can homebrew it, but the game doesn't have explicit guidelines for homebrewing items unlike 1e. So if you are homebrewing it you and the GM are making up all the rules for what you can create, including whether or not Inventor is a prerequisite for making them. Hence calvinball, you and the GM are making up rules as you need. Perhaps the game mastery guide will change this.
Best thing about this spell is that bards get it. So many fun monster songs on my phone to bust out whenever I want to summon anything in the game. Not to mention the option of making an illusory duplicate of yourself to sing a quick duet while stabbing your foes to death. Its pretty solid, though it is easy to remove from play so it plausibly won't last long enough to do more than Acid Arrow.
Assuming you need Nature Incarnate to be a kaiju, not much works with it. Giant's Lunge does, though you need Trick Magic Item and an 8k scroll to cast it, that gets you 40'. Otherwise, tentacular limbs is a GM call because of the morph trait. Your morph effects might also end if you are polymorphed and the polymorph effect invalidates or overrides your morph effect. The GM determines which morph effects can be used together and which can't.
I just give them information that will help them because it makes it easier for me to adjudicate critical failures and misinformation on recall knowledge.
A barbarian with Titan's Stature and Giant's Lunge gets +20' to their reach for the duration of rage, so 30' with a reach weapon, in exchange for 2 actions (one of which can be taken as part of the action to rage).
I think my favorite resolution to this problem is the family member attempts to slip in and kill in the night but isn't a trained assassin, so the PCs wake up just before the knife comes down and a normal encounter begins.
Also the PC is likely unarmored, if that matters for them.
I do them secret, there haven't been many arguments. It's an adjustment, but it also means there aren't as many cases of players needing to ignore information they have because their characters don't know they rolled a nat 1. I usually need to remind them that they don't roll that check, but they haven't complained that they should roll and see the die.
I know spell changes have been mentioned, but I'd like to highlight that True Strike and Jump are both solid options out of the box as opposed to their niche applications last edition.
I'd have at least one bard with triple time in the party. Positioning is pretty important for this group, if you center around the bard they can give everyone 10' speed when the party really needs to readjust. Meanwhile Inspire Courage is always a good AOE buff to keep up the offense and reactions.
Here's an interest conspiracy. Norgorber represents the darker impulses of humanity, murder and theft and secrecy and whatnot. Achaekek's followers specifically do not tolerate Father Skinsaw, but Father Skinsaw and Achaekek themselves are allies. Nobody knows much about Norgorber, not who he was before ascension or who he is now. Nobody even really sees his face unobscured. Achaekek exists, in part, to kill mortals who try to become gods. So any who slip through the cracks are a mark against him. What does this all have to do with Aroden? Well, Aroden and Norgorber are enemies, and Achaekek is theoretically opposed to both in the past for being mortals that ascended (when that is a big no-no). Norgorber sows some hints that he is secretly Aroden in disguise, using the face of Aroden to represent all of the good aspects of humanity and the faces of Norgorber's aspects for the darker sides. Achaekek picks up these hints and decides to kill Aroden to take care of both Aroden and Norgorber, believing them to be the same person. So Achaekek kills one of Norgorber's enemies for him. After this, Father Skinsaw sees Achaekek as an ally because he can be used to kill powerful enemies, but Achaekek instructs followers not to trust Father Skinsaw because he does not like being tricked. This still requires Achaekek to do something that he shouldn't ordinarily have the power to do, his powers are restricted to only being able to kill demideities, not proper deities. However, Achaekek taps into another source of power centered in the ocean between Mediogalti Island (the home of the Red Mantis Assassins on Golarion) and Garund. After he uses this, the Eye of Abendego opens up in response to the destructive forces needed to kill a deity.
What are some incorporeal creatures with mental resist? All of the ones I've seen. It's usually resist all damage except force and positive.
Also, mental resistance is a feature of the blink spell and common in incorporeal creatures. Not to mention mindless creatures are immune.
Could you all take the hellknight discussion to its own thread please? On topic for developer questions, how mobile are the various factions about the Inner Sea? I'm running a campaign in Nex soon, and other than the Pathfinder Lodge there isn't much that I can find elsewhere about the factions having a presence in the Impossible Lands. Is it plausible that there are some Magaambya Academics studying abroad on the other side of Garund? Would Knights of Lastwall have a presence there looking into recruiting Arazni? What are the odds of finding Firebrands and Hellknights in the region? I'm curious in case the players see the LOCG and want to make characters for those factions how difficult it is to tie them in/how much I need to diverge from canon.
This is the real reason dwarves invented firearms.
I like the idea that Achaekek was hired once the deities realised that Aroden wasn't the only mortal to acheive divinity via the Starstone, and it took him a couple thousand years to pull it off because the red mantis doesn't have enough raw killing power to take out a full deity so he had to find the Achilles heel. After all, Achaekek is opposed to mortals achieving divinity, and is explicitly the god of assassination.
Area attack frequency will depend on who you are fighting. They are a significant portion of the arcane and primal schools, but not necessarily divine or occult, and a lot of martial enemies won't have much for them but some iconic DnD monsters (dragons) will have them. So, maybe look for a campaign about fighting a bunch of martial foes? You will still encounter them often enough though, over the course of the campaign. Area buffs are something you will have to provide yourselves. A bard with Champion dedication gets a bunch of area stuff to play with, will be a good addition to this party you suggest. Whether or not you can stay close together is heavily situation-dependent. If you fight in open terrain, all have comparable speeds, and don't get hit with speed debuffs often you can probably manage it. If you have to deal with narrow hallways, difficult terrain, variable speeds in the party, tanglefoot, etc, you will have trouble keeping together. Similarly if you expect to take to the skies or underseas you will probably scatter apart. Also, note that intelligent enemies who notice that you have this trick aren't just going to play along and be within range. Ranged attacks+movement take away the main advantage of this tactic by being more than 15' away. Make sure the party is pretty diverse and MCs into paladin for a lot of it. It's a neat trick, but easily prevented. Anything to help your mobility is good, fleet, elf step, goblin scuttle, feather step, magic boots of better speed (I don't recall the name right now), etc. Reach weapons will help keep things in range. Divine Reactions lets you use other reactions without costing you the paladin's reaction.
1) More ways to get good at heavy armor. MC champion is a rather unsatisfying option for a lot of reasons, I'd really appreciate some armor archetypes. 2) Update some of the content that expanded classes in 1e over to 2e. Subschools and opposed schools for wizards, subdomains for clerics, wildblooded bloodlines for sorcerers, etc. 3) More spells. It is hard to specialize in a school of magic of that school is heavily uncommon or fails to offer spells at some levels.I 4) More ritual support. Some skill or archetype feats that let you do more with them. 5) Monster building rules and more Equipment. GMing feels great but treasure feels awfully thin and they aren't going to come out with a bestiary to fit all my monster wants. If I want a carnivorous whale sloth I need to custom make it, so I need me some monster building rules. 6) Clarifications on rules. 7) More of everything. Just, more. 8) A book giving more details on the Impossible Lands in the Inner Sea region so I know how much my campaign is diverging from canon.
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