Patrick Newcarry's page

what happens next? This makes me yearn for a novel around this character and her familiar

So there's going to be a... Geneva Convention?

Ahem, had to get that out of my system

I didn't know I wanted skittergoblins until now

Congrats Gyrwynt!

This is the greatest show!

A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one :)

wait, how tall are you Jason? You're towering over everyone else in that photo.

She gurgled a wet laugh, audibly swallowing another phlegm worm in the middle of it

I was drinking water when I read this. I nearly threw up.

That's the best thing I've read in a long time!

I have to admit, I really do like the pulp archaeology movies like Indiana Jones, if only for the really cool places and cultures I'd never heard about and the Nazi-punching wonder that Indi was. I'm a bit of a modern history enthusiast, and I played with all the Lego Indiana Jones stuff as a kid. All that to say, however, it does good to see that the more flawed aspects of those movies - such as the pillaging, looting, and destruction of other's cultural treasures that does take place in those movies - is looked down on nowadays.

However, I also like to emulate the pulp aspects of those stories in my own games. I like the idea of racing to find something and punching the bad guy in the face if he gets to it before you. That's fun to me, and seeing others say I shouldn't do that in a fantasy fiction setting seems a little drastic - after all, what happens at the game table stays at the game table, and those fake cultures that you find in a roleplaying game aren't really all that tied to the real world, unless I forgot that there was an ancient nation ruled by seven powerful nations in the real world that had giants as their personal slaves to build monuments to themselves. And bottom line, if an ancient golem from some ancient culture is going to attack my character, no matter how much significance it has to some other culture in a fantasy game, you better believe my character is going to defend himself. Because it's a game, and I'm going to treat it as such. I'm not going to consider the morality of my character destroying a mage's staff from 10,000 years ago - that's taking a game's fictional elements way too seriously, because I'm not going to hold an introspective monologue with myself over something I know for a fact I'd never do in real life. I love finding out new things about other cultures and ethnicities, but for the separation to not occur between the real world and the imaginary world means I can't have fun at my own dining room table with my own friends.

All that to say, I really enjoyed this blog post, and I find the idea of quantifying what characters do to affect the outcome of the Society at large a fascinating and exciting idea! I can't wait to see where this goes, and props to y'all for coming up with that idea!

Love the Absalom dynamic that's so palpable! Merchants trying to sell you talismans and ways of passing the chasm are certainly going to be included in my next description of the City at the Center of the World! Also love that each Hopeful already knows its future portafolio - I want to be the god of aligning schedules for game sessions!

Preach brother, preach!

congrats! Hope you get settled in nicely at the Paizo offices!

Excelsior!

I think it has two moons in the picture.

Man I'm surprised you didn't have the Matt Mercer stand-in be the DM

PossibleCabbage wrote:

So does that mean that Yoon is going to be like 12 forever? I was looking forward to angsty teenage Yoon.

Maybe. We haven't had to cross that bridge yet, so it hasn't come up. We might just leave Yoon in P1 and make a new kineticist iconic like we've done with Fumbus if we do a kineticist in P2. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I miss Damiel. Might we see him in some other art?

I'm intrigued by the "advice on how to create your own science fantasy tales" bit. I feel like a lot of people go into Starfinder expecting D&D in space (a la Spelljammer), or else something much more akin to true science fiction, and are surprised to see the amount of influence magic and gods and the supernatural have over the game. Science fantasy isn't the best defined genre out there, so a lot of people don't really know what to do with it. Starfinder's greatest strength - it's truly sandbox setting that allows scientific ambition, humanistic ideals, zealous religions and divine power, and Lovecraftian nihilism to exist concurrently and all be equally valid - is also its greatest weakness. There's too much extra thinking ahead involved.

Pathfinder can get away with being a sandbox setting because it can be concisely understood: "sword and sorcery, Lord of the Rings flavor fantasy except God is dead and the reliability of prophecy and fate with him." It's easy to pick up the game and play Pathfinder or even make your own setting from there. With Starfinder, a host of questions require the game master to put in a lot of extra thought ahead of time. What to do with a world where Heaven, the Devil, Cthulhu and space Elon Musk all exist concurrently? How are gods supposed to work in a world where a local drought or plague can be cured with commercial imports and advanced medicine? What effects does magic and the gods have on technological and social progress? How prevalent is magic, and is it more powerful than science? While fantasy has an abundance of pre-made templates giving GMs an idea of what a fantasy world is supposed to look like, science fantasy is a much more amorphous genre. As much as I love Starfinder's setting, I also know a lot of people who prefer to make their own, and often feel at a loss as to how to make a science fantasy world feel cohesive and make best use of the genre's flavor. I think it would be really helpful to have a creative world-building section, a campaign builder, and some talk about how various genres can make best use of science fantasy's unique setting. I really liked the "Corrupted by Shadows" and "Horrow Campaigns" articles in SoS AP1. Did a great job running over the fundamentals of horror with good advice about how science fantasy can interact with it.

That, or a Starfinder Game Master's Guide. I adore Pathfinder's, and I would buy this book in a heartbeat.

Any of those options sounds amazing. I really hope a Starfinder Game Master's Guide is released, as I'm finding that science fantasy is vastly different beast compared to typical RPG fantasy.

Why no Aggiecon? We folks down here in Texas don't get as much love convention-wise as compared to some of the northern states. :(

Be-bump bump.

Did the OP shut down this thread?

Also, I cast Raise Thread.

what's your favorite Adventure Path James?

And will we ever know what happened to Aroden?

Huzzah! Thanks for regaling us with your epic tale OAD! May the dice be ever in your favor!

So, is this going to be meant for PF 2e or 1e?

Oof. I took the PSAT last week. Can I not have another test to worry about?

Who are the artists?

Is this just for me? I can't download the bundle or the playtest rulebook. Is this just me?

This is a fantastic idea, one I am inclined to steal for my home games. A little customization to races and classes in my world could really tie it up and feel less generic. Thanks Paizo!

Man, I wish I had my regular gaming group together. Being a teenager makes it really hard to play games when you can't really call your hours and only a couple of you know how to drive. This looks like a huge amount of fun, and since the RotR was the first RPG I ever played in (I was 9), this brings back a lot of great Fall memories. Wish the rest of the guys were as interested as me. :(

You know what cracks me up? This is new version is almost exactly the same of how 5e presents its spells. I'm not saying this is a bad thing per se, I'm just saying that maybe a mix of the critical effects and heightened could be in order? I dunno what exactly that would like, but a combo of the two examples of Fireball above would be in order to differentiate from 5e and provide the mechanical complexity that a huge number of Paizo fans clamor for.

The only viable reason I can see is that the new system allows you to trace your bloodline with a mechanical effect (as if you couldn't just account that into your stats as you build your character), but otherwise I'm at a loss as for the reasoning of this.

It's been called Race for the past 40+ years. Why is this an issue now?

I think the best way to handle issue 3 mentioned by the OP is for the static progression to occur only with skills in which the character is trained, as a representation of that character's growth and development.

I really like the layout of the new sheet. It's way easier to read than the original sheet, IMO.

This is fantastic. Keep it up!

Meh. So far my least favorite post, but that's mainly because I've never multiclassed in my relatively small amount of roleplaying time I've had.

This is... a mostly good addition. It makes sense, but this is why GMs generally had their own "player packets" that briefed the players on what was and wasn't allowed in the game, so it's similar to reinventing the wheel. It does make it much easier to lower the learning curve of a given DM's setting for players, but this issue is generally resolved before the game is even started, so it's not too much of an addition to the overall game, and is kind of a waste of a blog post, considering the upcoming release in August.

A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.

I would like to see a settlement/planet generator in a SF GM's Guide. I find that coming up with an entire planet and its inhabitants, customs, and cultures can be a struggle to come up with. Just a little something to help get the creative juices flowing.

Also, I love all of BPorter's ideas.

On a final note, I'd like to see advice on roleplaying and coming up with aliens and their cultures. I really don't want my alien xenowarden to come across as me trying to impersonate something I don't know how to impersonate.

A prime example is a sword with the frost property rune

Is this a subtle hint to rune magic being more prominent in Pathfinder from now on?

Sounds (and looks) amazing. One thing I'm noticing is there is a lot of scaling in terms of proficiencies and whatnot. I hope the GM Screen (when it inevitably comes out) has charts for these scaling concepts. I'll admit, the versatility of the classes we've seen so far right off the bat is high. I'm really looking forward to 2nd Edition!

However, when the GM Screen comes out, can it please be in landscape format?

Sounds a lot like 5e, which is a good thing for me. I believe that majority here, however, would disagree with me. I think in 5e they rolled DR and resistance into just resistance and it seems it's working out fine for them.

I think the above mentioned suits of armor are fine and clean. The issue comes into play when women's armor becomes less of protection and more to flaunt herself on the battlefield.

I think one thing to consider is that this game is not exclusively devoted to adults. Heck, I was introduced to RPGs when I was 9 via Pathfinder (I'm a teen now) and the pictures always seemed too bare on the women's side. The males were always covered up, yet nearly every female besides Kyra were dressed in an immodest fashion.

Now let me ask you a question: if a nine-year-old is uncomfortable with so-called "sexy" images, why should it be any different for older folk? After all, is not a child's view of the world marked by innocence? There are new RP-ers joining the ranks, young people like me, and not all of us agree with the sexual fantasies of the earlier days of gaming. This is a chance for the artists at Paizo Pub. to get a fresh new start and begin with a clean slate, and help us younger people stay away from crappy images of threadbare women.

After all, guys, wouldn't you feel uncomfortable if a male iconic wearing a speedo had his speedo a little "tight" around the legs? (I kept that as vague as possible.)

Will goblin PCs be able to read? I’m really hoping to make a goblin wizard!

That's not hard. You just pretend that your goblin PC uses pictures instead of writing for spells. Who ever said that spells had to be written out?

7) I once had to get stitches after getting hit in the face with a thrown brand new copy of an RPG book (Werewolf: the Wild West, for the curious). Will the hardcover copy Pathfinder 2nd Edition have safe and dull corners?

The Real Question is why were you hit with a rulebook in the face in the first place? ;)

That doesn't make any sense to me...

from a thematic standpoint, "instantaneously becoming immortal" seems really strange and odd, especially if the character affected doesn't want that ability.

Just my two cents though

loving the changes! 2nd edition, here I come!

I really like #4.

Same. I've been in RPGs for five years now (I'm a teenager) and have no idea what to expect.

According to the online dictionary of google, paladins in their second definition are knights renowned for their heroism and chivalry. It kinda defeats the purpose of calling the class as whole a "paladin" if you're gonna make a CE paladin.

Now, I would be down for a warpriest class to replace the paladin. I'd actually prefer that; a lot of my settings I play in aren't exactly compatible with the notion of a paladin.

The hard truth that is pushing me to ask: No game is ever perfect.

You could finalise the rules to a game and then spend years tweaking and polishing and revising. There's always a new problem or imperfection or imbalance.
Always.

After all... Blizzard has been trying to perfectly balance and design World of Warcraft for how many years now? 13? 14? Plus the beta so like 15 or 16.
Or, put a more familiar way, 3e had been played for how long and when Pathfinder was released stealth and light levels were still problematic. To say nothing of balance in the latter half of the game.

Pathfinder 2 is going to have bugs and warts. That's inevitable.

But the longer the game is in the public eye, the more of those little bugs and warts will be seen and able to be fixed. (And, of course, seen, fixed, and then the fix tested because, of course, the first fix is very often an over-correction that goes too far.)

Not getting the rules in people's hands as soon as possible is knowingly choosing to release a game that is more flawed than it could have been. And disproportionately flawed in the late game because that's what will see far, far less testing. And what testing it does receive might be less valid as people aren't playing their characters with the same efficiency they would after levelling up properly.

In 2023, when Pathfinder 2 has been out for four years and a player is struggling with a problematic rule in the game, what do you want to tell them?
"Sorry you're having troubles. They did EVERYTHING they could but it wasn't caught in time." OR "Sorry. They coordinated worldwide campaign and had other licensees who needed Paizo to finalise things. And they were worried about people picking up the book at their favourite retailer would be an afterthought."

Referring to bolded text at top...

Unlesss you consider 4e...

agreed with all of above posts. this is very important

I agree. Get it out earlier if you have it. What's the point of holding back?

MR. H wrote:

Mainly the weight of the book. So many pages are devoted to setting material. It implies a certain chunk of the game you bought is meant for that setting.

Solarians aren't really a Sci-fi fantasy archetypical concept. They are pretty setting specific.

Drift being default rules tie ships to that setting. Ships not having a price pulls it towards the specific setting because that doesn't make sense in many settings. Not being able to have reusable cybernetics doesn't make sense in other settings. Item level only makes sense in a setting that assumes that concept as being a thing. Other settings may have gun control.
The technomancer/mystic divide is pretty space-D&D specific rather than Sci-fi fantasy specific. Psionic stuff is only an archetype.

From the ground up, the game is hard to port even to other Sci-fi fantasy settings that don't have all the same cultural assumptions as Starfinder.

I mean sure, some pages of the core rule book are devoted to setting. As someone who wants to use the Future Golarion setting, I would have been upset if they didn't have at least some setting material for me to work with. But none of the information that they provide has much of a mechanical effect on anything else.

As well, just because Solarions don't quite fit with your view of sci-fi, Solarions are basically Jedi to me. And there's nothing of the Solarions mechanical abilities thats tied to the setting. I mean, I guess you could say that the photon or graviton powers are tied to the setting, but you could just as easily call it the light side and dark side of the force (or anything else) without trouble.

I will give you that drift travel is very setting specific, but honestly it would be very easy to change "hyperspace" travel mechancis to be whatever you wanted to fit with your universe. Drift travel and it's relation to Absalom station are the only mechanics tied to fluff that I can think of.

As far as ships not having a price...that's not a setting specific issue. That has nothing to do with the setting of Future Golarion. It is the mechanics of Starfinder, which doesn't want players to be able to buy or sale Starships and either have too strong of ships at the expense of PC power or too strong of PCs at the expense of ship power. However, this is in no way tied to the setting. It is a failing of the mechanics if you were looking for that sort of thing.

The other issue you bring up, are again not lore/setting specific issues. They're all purely mechanic issues that exist, but have nothing to do with the Future Golarion Universe. I can agree that they can pose problems when you want those mechanics to be different, but that are at the end of the day mechanics that work with or without the setting. How well these mechanics might reflect a specific setting you want to create is the issue.

And now I think I understand your ultimate issue. You want the rules to support the mechanics you want to make, and currently there are a lot of gaps or things glossed over that don't allow you to craft the world setting you want. It's not that you can't run Dune using Starfinder rules (which is a bad example because it probably does Dune well) but it's that you can't simulate a pirate campaign where you focus on salvaging other Starship for profit because you don't have mechanics for it.

This isn't a campaign setting issue at all. The mechanics simply don't exist for what you want.

Well, to be fair, Jedi can essentially cast spells, and the Solarion can't, so....