Pedro Sampaio's page

I'm running a Strange Aeons Campaign, and I have a great playlist to share:

https://play.google.com/music/playlist/AMaBXykhKgJSuR8E3QgE0fZEfOC0Sq2AJf6w oxZKVeDGAdD-7EBCq5O76Ap7rD8j4HcYiW_IcXjLBe2RbOzxvYKFemRuOEIxEw%3D%3D

Some highlights:
- Darkest Dungeon OST is great for battle music. Specially the Colors of Madness DLC
- Alex Roe have several SoulsBorne like soundtracks, great for boss battles and building up tension
- I use Brad Derrick's Elder Scrolls Online OST as ambient music for dungeons and the like
- Riven OST for Dreamlands Excursion in part 3
- Lustmord is for Carcosa (extremely alien like soundtrack)
- As always, for desert-themed Chtulhu, nothing better than Karl Sanders

Ah of course! I do understand that. It's just that for my players, being previously despicable humans won't work at all. And while we do enjoy the lovecraftian touches in other Paizo APs, we're not experts of the Lovecraft mythos by any stretch of the imagination. As an example, my players have no idea that Denizens of Leng or Hounds of Tindalos come from the Cthulhu Mythos. So they're into this AP without any specific expectations.

OTOH, Mind control and losing one's agency is extremely frightnening to them (well, to anyone, really). Knowing this, I wanted to emphasize the otherwordly power the yellow sign has on people's mind. From what I could gather, just by looking to a Yellow Sign you could be influenced by Hastur. Having a simple symbol be a powerful tool to open one's mind is utterly terryfing. I might even allow for cultist's holy symbols to count... not entirely sure yet.

Also, I had this idea of a sociopathic Lowls that through a strong force of personality, but also some suggestion and even Charm spells, would befriend you, and slowly make you do things you didn't want to. Just like a good sociopath would do...

What I plan to do in my campaign is to establish that they had been manipulated through magic (sugestion/charm and even dominate) and forced to do what they did. Even though Lowls is only Bard 2 in the original AP, IMC he'll probably be of a Higher level (possibly level 10 or 11) to justify his access to those spells. One possible way to hint of their magical manipulation is to slightly modify the reactions of NPCs to them. Since they probably only knew the PCs as they were under compulsion spells, townsfolk might now note that the PCs actually show proper emotions and reactions. If my PCs are clever enough, they might guess that their lack of emotional drive before was the side-effect of domination magic, even before they get back their memories.

Another thing I want to add is that a properly drawn or inscribed Yellow Sign (i.e. Craft DC 25) will give a -2 on Will checks against mind-affecting spells and effects from followers of Hastur. This effect is automatic, as long as the victim is looking to the sign (treating it similar to a gaze monster ability). Lowls probably used an yellow sign to further deepen his control over the PCs.

Thankfully, success rates can be tweaked. It's not a matter of the core design, but just the numbers being a bit out of whack. With a little bit of change, I'm sure Paizo can get the numbers to where players feel powerful but still keep the game challenging.

I'm hopeful that Paizo will fix this. But at the same time, I don't think fixing the success rate is entirely possible without breaking the game, given the current Crit rules.

You just cannot increase the success rate without increasing the crit rate, in the current state of the game. Base 70% hit rate means an base 20% chance to crit. If we use this as a base number for success rate, and then we factor that there's circunstancial bonuses, conditional bonuses and etc., the numbers go even higher.

Why 65% feels bad.

Most players have went to school for 12 plus years and you are told somethings about what is good, what is average, and what is bad. We know these marks as grades. What the percentage range of each letter changes from school to school, so I am going to with the simplest and the nice I
have come across.

A 90% plus this is great.
B 80% to 89% this is good.
C 70% to 79% this is alright.
D 60% to 69% this is poor.
F 59% and below this is bad.

For my bachelors program you were required to have at the least a B average in your main field of study. And you had to have at least C in all courses for your main field of study. You are considered an expert
in your field when you get your degree.

So when you say the Fighter is the best when it comes to weapons and thus at landing hits with them 65% feels like a ripe off. That first attack is a D, a barley passing grade and if this is your area of expertise not acceptable. I feel the same for fully invested skills. I have had it drilled into my head for years that 65% is a D and a poor showing, it is passing but not acceptable.

If the fighter is the best class when it comes to using a weapon they should at the very least be able hit 80% of time with their best attack. For other martial classes being average 70% a C is fine.

I would be alright if not happy if the max would be 80% on the first attack for the fighter. That would place a non-optimized fighter at 70%-75%. Which is where I think the ranger, monk, and barbarian should be. This would put your first attack at 80%, second attack at 55% and third attack at 30%.

If you need to increase creature HP and/or increase a critical to be 15 over the AC instead of 10 over. Or you could add a class feat like sure strike that could add a +2 circumstance bonus to the attack.

There is a reason that I rarely used power attack in PF1 and it was the minus to attack.

I hope this explanation explains why I and most likely others feel that 65% success is too low for...

I agree, and 65% hit chance for a fighter is something achievable only with bonuses, normally it would be around 55%. And don't even begin when you factor that other classes maight have <50% hit chance (sometimes as low as 30-35% chance for a Cleric).

Then again, you can't increase too much the fighter's hit rate, because that would automatically increase crit chance, upping the damage considerably. That's why I'm certain that the current crit mechanic (+10/-10) is the CORE of the problem. It's broken by principle. Criticals (as in 3.5, PF1, 5e) are a fun mechanic that adds a layer of swingness and unpredictability, though sometimes can be problematic. That's why increases in critical range are relatively hard to come by in those games.

On the other hand, if you add a mechanic that dinamically shifts the range of criticals (+10/-10 crit mechanic) look what you get: you now completely lost control over the mechanic. Add in conditional bonuses to that equation. What you get is e level of uncertainty that is virtually impossible to balance.

Think about it. Right now, almost every single decidion on the system must be tuned to acomodate the current state of criticals. To hit bonuses and monster statistics must be extremely tight in order to prevent damage escalation. Conditional bonuses must be tightly controlled in order to prevent damage escalation. AC must increase linearly to prevent damage escalation. Tables with sugested DCs must be used, otherwise is critical success after critical success in skills. Spells must be balanced considering that crit failures are a thing, leading to several spells being extremely underwhelming even after a failed save. The list goes on and on.

There is a mantra in game design that states that if a mechanic only works if you acomodate the entire of your game around it, it probably isn't a good mechanic and needs to be changed or scrapped altogether.

Matthew Downie wrote:

Pedro Sampaio wrote:

In PF2, however, a +10 result above the target DC is not very difficult to achieve, specially against a weaker opponent or with a few bonuses stacked together. The fact of the matter is that it makes the math EXTREMELY tight, and without extreme controle the crit chances just escalates too quickly. This leads to a whole lot of problems, but most notably is the problem of To Hit bonuses vs. AC. In the current state of the game, we have an optimized fighter with 55% hit chance (5% crit chance) against a similar leveled monster. Add flanking and Inspire Courage and suddenly he hits 70% and crits 20%, which is huge!

Maybe crits just need to be less powerful than they currently are. That would reduce the random swinginess some people are reporting.

Maybe instead of doubling damage, crits just maximize the dice rolled? This would curb the damage difference between higher damage die weapons and lower damage die ones. Fatal and Deadly could function the same as they are now and be more valuable.

This will affect player damage, so monster hp would need to be adjusted downward a bit, but fights won't be as swingy any more.

TBH, it would only make crits bland instead of exciting, and IMO wouldn't solve the issue at hand. But still, it's a better alternative to what we have right now.

I agree that the math is as tight as it is because of the Degrees of Success rule. It makes even small difference betwen characters, such as a +1, have too much of an impact, which resulted in the game being conservative about them while increasing the gap betwen optimized and not-optimized characters.

With just +2 attack over most characters, the fighter already has like triple their crit rate, so the sweetspot for things working becomes very very narrow. The differenc ebetwen a total stomp and a TPK can really hinge on a +2 difference on the dice, so there doesn't seem to be a sweetspot betwen optimized character and a weaker, more thematic build.

In previous editions, having a super high attack or skill for the challenge, of course, pretty good, but even with a good mod you wouldn't crit more often and it took a wider gap to be able to trivialize the encounter completely.

A crit from a martial can turn a 4-turn fight into 1-turn. The same can be said for a spellcaster getting the crit-fail effect on a save or die. There is no way with current rules to improve odds of getting basic success without also skyrocketing crit success, which makes the character's effectiveness go through the roof. I believe this is why everyone has such low chances of basic success on average tasks and why this thread needed to be made.

If you boost characters chance to hit, the fighter would likely also be boosted by the same amount (to maintain their "edge") and this could result in a huge power spike for them. (Goes from crit on 19-20 to 17-20). This means you can't let the specialist get too much of a boost over the others. Maybe a page from 5E should be taken and characters given more qualitiative boosts to their combat rather than +1s to prevent numbers form being the end-all be-all. That or the critical system has to be revised to minimize their impact.

On the skills side, it's not so bad to get crits compared to outright killing stuff. Reducing difficulty would not break the balance as much in here. But since...

I think you expressed my concerns much more clearly. While it's very likely that monsters may need fine tuning, it won't solve the core issue - the mechanics of crits.

Off the top of my head, I was thinking that a possible alternative to the current +10/-10 crit system, there could be a system of improved critical range tied to proficiency. It could be something like this:

- Untrained, trained and Expert characters Crit on a 20 (and enemies crit fail spells on a 1).
- Masters Crit on a 19-20 range (and enemies crit fail spells on 1-2).
- Legendary crit on 18-20 range (enemies crit fail spells on 1-3).

I'll have to think more thoughrouly on the matter, and try to post something tomorrow.

So, I like a lot of things about PF2. The math is much cleaner, character creation is a breeze....

DMW, I completely agree with everything you said, with one exception. I firmly believe that the core problem of PF2 is, in fact, the +10/-10 crit range paradigm. I'll try to explain my reasoning below.

Firstly, I would like to state that, as a huge fan of World of Darkness games, I really dig the concept of four degrees of sucesses. However, on that game, the degrees are dependent on a specific system: 5 or more successes (for critical successes) and 1 on a chance die (for critical failures). In order to achieve a crit success in WoD, you either have to be lucky (each D10 in your "pool" has about 30-35% to earn you a success, a character particularly good at something might have a pool of 5 or 6 dice) or have a huge pool (a pool around 12-15 D10s is necessary to consistently achieve crits, a huge number even for Ancient Vampires). For crit failures, you had to rely on a chance die, basically when your pool would equal 0 or less (due to circunstancial penalties, for instance), you had the chance to throw a chance D10, on a 10 you would suceed, 2-9 you fail and 1 you crit fail. I like this system because while it's possible to achieve a critical success, specially if you're really good at something, it's not something overwhelmingly present.

In PF2, however, a +10 result above the target DC is not very difficult to achieve, specially against a weaker opponent or with a few bonuses stacked together. The fact of the matter is that it makes the math EXTREMELY tight, and without extreme controle the crit chances just escalates too quickly. This leads to a whole lot of problems, but most notably is the problem of To Hit bonuses vs. AC. In the current state of the game, we have an optimized fighter with 55% hit chance (5% crit chance) against a similar leveled monster. Add flanking and Inspire Courage and suddenly he hits 70% and crits 20%, which is huge! But that means that non-optimized characters like a Cleric with good strength will only hit, at most, 30-40% of the time, and would not benefit from the increased accuracy in their crit chance.

If, on the other hand, Monsters ACs are toned down to fit the regular cleric as the base (around 50-55% hit chance), then the fighter would be criting regularly at 20% and would hit 35% crit chance with small bonus, and would most certainly just ROFLSTOMP the encounters. Then monsters HP would have to UP to compensate, and etc... You get the idea. But the core of the problem is still there.

For me at least, it's plain as day that almost every other decision in design was tweaked to fit the +10/-10 crit paradigm, but given the problems that are constantly arising in the forums, it seems that it's in the detriment to the game experience. From a game design perspective, I think that the current state of crits just doen'st work in practice, and it should be change completely. Maybe reverting to crits on 20/1s is the best alternative, maybe there'se another way. I'll think about it some more and share my thoughts later.

Cheers!

My group of veteran players with a balanced group (no Cleric though, but had a Druid and a Bard) all with good AC/Dex, had to head back and rest after 2-3 encounters. Five minute adventuring day all over again.

Please make Hero Points optional! Let PCs take 1 Bonus Class or Ancestry Feat in exchange just like 1st Ed.

I love Hero Points personally, but about half my players don't like them and being able to opt-out of their use was a good side benefit for them.

Agreed. Mechanics like Hero Points should be optional.

I have to agree. Having played The Lost Star a few times (I have a write up on the relevant forum), me and my players have all noticed the extreme lethality the palyers are subjected to. Not in a fun way, as other systems may have, but in an extremely frustrating way. Death and Dying rules continue to be too punitive (although, to be fair, in a better state than before). Mobs crit way too often, at least partly because of their inflated statuses (+6 to hit at the very minimum), and their average damage is too high for PCs. This leads to the dreaded 5-minute adventuring day, as our group could handle 2-3 encounters a day before exhausting their resources.

Me and my players, analysing this, think that the core problem may be the 4-degress of success and +10/-10 crit paradigm. Further playtesting may or may not confirm our suspicions, but our preliminary conclusion is that with increased threat ranges intrinsicaly tied to attack bonuses/AC, the system as it's written right now, have a very small window where the math may actually work (i.e: equal or just +1/-1 level above or below the party level). Up the challlenge a little more, the PCs suffer a PTK. lower the Challenge, it's a cakewalk. And that's even considering the monsters are undertuned in the final version.

You say "the ranger was very good" which goes against most other things I've read. Did he actually get to use any ranger class features other than standard martial combat stuff and the good skill list?

You're right, what I actually meant is that the archer (could be any class) could shoot reasonably (wihtout volley 50) and do damage (except against the skeletons).

But the problem is, the animal companion didn't feel worth the action and recall knowledge was never used. The animal companion was actually used to take the brunt of the "sneak attack" from the centipedes, droping in the first round, and was also used to trigger the goblin trap.

Regarding the goblin fight, we were using dim light rules, and the bard casted light right at the fireplace so the druid could co there and use burning hands the next round.

Too be fair to the design of The Lost Star... it explicitly gives you a week to complete a dozen-room dungeon which you're provided a map of and have an informant regarding. Nevermind whether this expectation is reasonable; it seems to be designed to be sieged, not raided. I don't think completing the dungeon in one sweep is intended, thus explaining why it is so hard to do.

** spoiler omitted **

I understand that a week to complete is more than enough to finish the dungeon is a conscious decision from the devs. But when the adventure day manages to be even shorter than in 3rd edition (it's reminding me a lot of my AD&D days...), then we might have a problem.

Deadmanwalking wrote:

There were 5 of them, but two of them had notably poor offense (though one was a Cleric, which explains how they did it in one day).

The game seems to go out of it's way to punish ANY party that isn't optimized JUST right. For instance, no cleric and you'll have a bad time. Not maxing stats and you have a bad time. It almost seems like they want every party to go back to the fighter, thief, cleric magic user days... This may be why we had a really bad, unfun time as we made characters because they seemed interesting and NOT because they where mathematically the very best possible option to survive the meatgrinder that is new pathfinder monsters.

EDIT: And we never did finish the adventure as the boss single handedly murdered us all.

Deadmanwalking wrote:

5 of them

IMO, this skews the results quite a bit along with having a cleric. We had an extra body [an animal companion] but even with 2 people that could heal [alchemist and druid] the adventure was just brutal. We didn't leave because we were low on resources: we had NONE left and were still less than max. I feel lied to that a barbarian could keep a party healed when TWO actual healing type classes couldn't.

We had almost exactly the same experience in our playtest night. The party didn't have a Cleric the way DMW's group had, but had 2 healers, a Bard and a Druid. The other two were a Ranger with an animal companion and a Monk with high Dex. All were pretty defensive, with 16 Dex, 17 AC etc. But even then, they were being damaged constantly. And were TPKed at the battle with Drakus btw.

Agreed with The Narration and DMW comments above.

After playing Doosmday Dawn part 1, I think a major side-effect of inflated to hit numbers is that the 5-minute adventure day is even more of a problem. That's even with higher HP at level 1. When even level 0 Monsters just hit PCs too easily, in 2-3 battles the PCs were all hurt, had no more healing spells and you can't even circumvent that by giving healing potions of a wand of healing because most PCs will have just a few (if not 1) RPs to spare.

Comparing to my 3.5 Age of Worms campaign, we finished the whole first dungeon (Huge dungeon with 24 rooms) with 2 rests. At level 1.

Actually the goblins in the second room should have gotten the drop on the party. They are in complete darkness, they detected the players stealth attempt, none of the players has darkvision and there are no more dim light rules from light sources (as of this playtest, because that is definitely something which should be changed back). I am unsure how the Druid managed to get three of the four goblins when he couldn't even see where they were.

I'm not trying to be a nag, but as I think that unlimited range darkvision and the new light rules for many spells and items are both working together to create really untenable situations for non-darkvision races, I thought I needed to point this out.

When we played this battle, all of us, myself included, just instinctively used the old PF1/3.5 rules for light range (bright-light + double dim light radius). Only after that we noticed the rule change we began to try and test the new light rules. Spoilers: we didn't like it =P.

In any case, they could detect the goblins were at the north end of the room because of all the noise they were making, and they were very silent, and the goblins were distracted so they only noticed the PCs when they got close to them (~20ft or so). Both the monk and the Druid had light sources in them.

But I agree, the light and vision rules are wonky, they should just use PF1 rules instead.

Just a note :

Drakus should be alone.

It was confirmed by Paizo that the Giant Rat is not supposed to be there. The Paizo dude was like "Why are you all speaking about a rat ? There is no rat in the playtest" and then get very confused when we showed him the rat entry in the PDF.

He then checked and said it was a mistake, likely a copy-paste error or something like that.

Yeah... I learned that today. That's unfortunate, but one more reason now to replay the last battle. I don't think it would've changed the overall result i(i.e. the TPK), but it's something I really want to test.

We'll go through the boss battle tonight, and I'll make sure to tell how it went!

Just to clarify, we didn't use Hero Points. My group hates the very idea of hero points. I hope that Hero Points become completely optional, and not take part in the balance of core mechanics such as dying rules.

Now, my impressions.

Firstly, and this is a very positive thing. The game FEELS like a Pathfinder game. One with a custom set of rules, but the feeling is there. That's great.

Also, 3 action economy is great. It's simple and intuitive. I think some actions need to be balanced more (such as being unable to ready spells, recall knowledge taking an action instead of being free action), but overall we thought the combat flowed nice and smoothly.

The Fungus hazard was very fun. I like the idea of hazards being more than traps, and having other specialties (Religion, Nature, Arcana), being used instead of just "disable device, disable device, disable device...".

Monsters were fun to use, specially the quasits. I never used the goblin reactions (Goblin Scuttle i think), as they make seemed too cheesy and gamey to me. Also, it bothered us a lot that even level 0 mobs seem to be arbitrarily strong (they could easily hit every PC, even though they all had decent AC). I get why low level monsters have the numbers they have from a game balance perspective (as Mark have explained in other threads), but nevertheless my players and I couldn't buy the idea that every goblin, centipede, ooze, quasit and skeleton had more To Hit than every PC, and that really detracted from the whole experience. I think Mobs need lower stats overall, one that makes sense in regards to PCs and we need a new category to include previous weaklings monsters (CR 1/3 and 1/4).

A side-effect of monsters with very good bonuses was that even though their damage is rather low, we felt that they Chipped away the party HP WAAAY to quickly. The party exausted their resources very quickly, and had to get back and recover after 2-3 fights every time. Maybe with a cleric it would've been a lesser problem, but having 2 healers (Bard and Druid), we all felt that the adventure day was way too short. Comparatively, in our current campaign, a 3.5 Age of Worms game, we had our party of level 1 PCs go through the whole of Whispering Cairn (a level 1 dungeon with 22 rooms) with just 2 rests. In another Campaign, this one a Curse of the Crimson Throne for PF1, our PCs finished the first dungeon in one go (no rests).

The initiative system is a mess. It either needs a proper rule for surprise rounds or at very least a series of clarifications of when and how to use Stealth as initiative, and how to deal with Unseen creatures at the start of the combat mode, specially if they are seen to some creatures but not others. In 3.5/PF, you just start a surprise round with creatures that are aware of each other, then progress to normal rounds afterwards. IMO, this seems like a much better (and simpler) alternative than we have right now in PF2.

All classes felt very good in combat and outside. My players were specially impressed with how the bard worked so well, although his healing was somewhat subpar (Soothe is way worse than Heal). The druid had burning hands, and it was awesome to see it shine when properly used. The monk was very effective in combat, but we felt that the lack of a way to control the enemy movement undermined his role as a main Warrior. The ranger was very good, but the animal companion was VERY weak. Poor HP, AC (13?? really?), +3 to hit... And costs 1 action of the ranger. For the most part, it just sat there, while the ranger used all his actions for himself.

I think my party had a TPK for a number of reasons: Drakus had significant positional advantage against the PCs as he forced them into the corridor a fought at the entrance. Also, bad rolls for the players and good rolls for the GM was also a factor. I had I think 3 natural 20s during the fight, plus several rolls of 16+. The players had most rolls <10. Also, the dying rules REALLY screwed them over. The recovery save was WAAAY to high (17 for a monk with +2 Fort is ridiculously high), so even though the Monk was almost in full health after the Bard and the Druid healed him, he didn't come back to the fight, and they essentially wasted their actions. The same happened after the ranger fell. Finally, the numbers for Drakus are ridiculously good, and his revert form ability is just lethal. +2 hit and damage is more than +50% damage in a round.

This made me feel that combat in PF2 is more swingy. I know this is 1st level and 1st level characters can always die to bad luck, but I feel that given that crits are way more common in 2E, low level lethality may be a bigger issue now. Also, I know Updated death and dying rules are coming on monday (probably), and that's probably a good thing. Current rules make recovery DCs EXTREMELY unfair, and staying unconscious is REALLY not fun, and moreover, screws the party even more once one of them is downed.

All in all, it was a fun experience. My players and I plan to replay the final battle tomorrow, to see if they can win, since we do have a feeling that luck was a factor in the TPK. Let's see how it goes.

So I wanted to share our group's experience, add some insights from our experiences with the Playtest of Part 1, and tell how it ended in a TPK at the boss fight.

Before we begin, I'd like to say our group is very experienced. We play as the same group since 2000 and we play 3.5 and PF1 regularly. My players are very savvy combat-wise, and in our regular games, I frequently have to wrap my head around to build proper challenges to them.

As to the characters, we had:
- Half-elf Monk, with tiger style, DEX/STR focused. AC 17. He was the main front-line.
- Elf Ranger. Archery focused, High dex, AC 17 and wolf animal companion to help tanking.
- Half-Orc Druid, wild order, focused on Dex and Wis, prepared Heal and Burning Hands as 1st level spells.
- Elf Bard, Lore muse. 16 Dex, uses a shortbow as his weapon. Spells known are true strike, Soothe and Fear.

All in all, a relatively balanced party. Now, on to the playtest.

The sewer ooze encounter was a piece of cake. The players took a little (2) damage from the trash explosion, but otherwise dealt with it in 1 round.

For the Burial chamber, the players were sneaking, but were spotted because of their light source. The druid acted first and killed 3 of the 4 goblins with a well placed burning hands, and the last goblin was finished by the monk before they could even act.

The Mindfog fungus Hazard was very fun, as the Druid tried to use Survival to disable the fungus, but kept failing the DC19 check, becoming confused and repeatedly hitting himself with the sickle. He finally gave up and just used produce flame to destroy it. He then used his Heal to patch himself up.

In the vermin den room, I divided the 6 centipedes in 2 groups, in order to roll for stealth. 1 group rolled super high and remained hidden, while the other half was easily spotted by the PCs and combat began. This was where the new initiative rules became EXTREMELY confusing. Instead of just having a surprise round for those 3 centipedes that remained hidden (as it would've been in PF1), I used their stealth checks as the initiative roll, but they used their action to position themselves in the edge of the rubble and readied attacks when some PC appreached the other (now spotted) centipedes. The ranger sent his wolf pet to attack a spotted centipede, but the companion was completely demolished by 2 hidden centipedes attack. He dropped the next round. The wolf then almost died because of death rolls. The players could defeat the centipedes, but sustained a lot of damage. Having no other means of healing they went back to the city to rest and heal up.

When they got back, and since they were away for 2 days, I decided to spice things up a bit, and put 4 goblins investigating the burial chamber. This time, the players sucessfully sneaked and hid behind the pillars. The bard, knowing goblins hated dogs, used ghost sound to imitate do barks and lure the goblins to their location. Then again, the stealth as initiative rules are VERY confusing. I rolled perception for each the goblins and stealth for each of the players, to see if they could have become hidden from them. With their stealth results, some players could sucessfully hide from some of the goblins... HOW the hell do you run that? I don't know if I ran it correctly, but I ruled that hidden characters could ready an action to attack a goblin as soon as they got into range, and then used their superior stealth results as their initiative for the rest of the combat. The problem was that hidden PCs would effectively "lose" their action waiting for the enemies to come closer, while the Seen PCs could act normally from the start. It seem counterintuitive, in practice. Anyway, the players sustained minor damage and continued.

They proceeded to the fountain, spotted the idol and tried to remove it, trigerring the Quasit summons. The battle was overall interesting and balanced. The druid suffered a lot of damage even though he had 16 armor (17 with light shield up), but the +7 bonus to hit from the quasits plus poison plus wolf shapechange was savage. Since the quasits could fly, they could reach almost anyone in the room wih impunity. I think the lack of attack of opportunity for the monk really undermined his ability to be an effective frontliner. The Druid used his one Heal to patch himself up, and the rest of the players drinked from the clear fountain to recover.

None of the PCs were good with Thievery, so they couldn't open the locked door to the south. They went east, detecting the alarm trap. Slowly opening the door, they proceded to the cave with the goblins, the commando and the pyro. Failing a stealth check, the Ranger that was scounting ahead was noticed by the goblins. The battle was difficult at the beginning, as the players were cautious to enter a cave full of goblins and with a grease spell at the entrance (the goblin pyro cast it in his first round). As the mobs could attack with ranged weapons and only one or two PC in the corridor could fire back at them, they eventually entered the cave. The goblins set the trap after the druid failed his jump check (to jump over the grease area) and ended in the area of the trap. However, the druid was able to once again cast a well placed burning hands that finished 3 goblins and hurt the commando. The rest was just the PCs finishing the pyro and commando. They finished healing with a Soothe and the Healing potion and set themselves to the skeleton room.

Now this was a very difficult fight. The only way this didn't end poorly for the PCs was because the Monk was blocked the doorway and fough 3-4 skeletons at a time, instead of all 6. The skeletons with their resistances were almost immune from all damage the party could deliver: The monk couldn't enter Tiger stance as its slashing damage and fought in regular unarmed attacks. The ranger only had his longbow (P), and the wolf bite is P as well. The Druid had a sickle and produce flame, but could get some damage through acid splash. The bard sang and attacked with his shortbow. They slowly but surely chipped the skeleton's HP and won the fight. The monk was badly hurt, end they had to get back to rest and recover once again.

Recovered, all PCs but one had drank from the fountain to replenish their HP (they still had some leftover damage from the day before), so only the bard set off the Statue trap. After that, the players deduced the fountain was protecting them, the bard drank from it to recover and then bypassed the trap the second time around.

Now the boss battle against Drakus. The PCs had to spend 3-4 rounds trying to roll open the stuck door. Drakus positioned himself behind the left statue, whereas his dire rat friend was behind the right statue. The PCs opened the door and the fight began.

With his high Perception of +6, Drakus won initiative. He moved to left side of the doorway and readyed an Strike. The monk assumed tiger stance, Stepped into the first square in front of the doorway in order to attack Drakus without the cover of the Wall. Drakus used his readyed action to Strike the monk, hitting him (he needed a 7 on a D20). The monk hit with one attack, missing the second flurry attack. Next, the ranger moved in and attacked Drakus, but missed. He orderer his Wolf to circle around and flank Drakus with the fighter, which it did with a double Stride. The Druid cast Procuce Flame but missed. The bard sang, and tried to hit with his bow, but missed as well. The dire rat attacked the ranger, hitting with 2 attacks and dealing 5 damage (1 hit and a nat 20, crit). Next round, Drakus reverted his form, and with his +2 to hit and damage, easily downed the monk (1 critical with a nat 20 and a regular hit). The ranger attacked Drakus, but hit with only one attack. The wolf missed both attacks now that he wasn't flanking anymore (the monk was dying). The Monk also failed his first Recovery check, and was now at dying 2. The druid (with a potion) and the bard (with soothe) both healed the Monk, but those actions were essentially wasted, as the Monk could not wake up (he had to pass a DC 17 fortitude save - High DC for a level 3 creature). The rat missed both attacks against the ranger. Next round, Drakus moved next to the ranger, hit him with a crit and downed him. Again, the monk failed the recovery save and wouldn't wake up. The bard cast Fear, but Drakus saved, becoming frightened 1. The druid healed the Ranger. Next round Drakus moved in to attack the Bard, and with a crit (not natural 20) downed him. He then moved to the Druid. He tried to escape, but was soon overwhelmed. the monk and the Ranger never woke up (they couldn't pass the DC17 fort save). So that's it. A TPK.

I agree with the above posters. The overall design seems fine. The text is clear, no huge walls of text and the information is easy to find once you know where to look.

The general organization on the other hand, needs improvement (though the current organization is expected, since this is a playtest document). I have the same opinion as Micheal Smith, that the quantity of duplicate text is unecessarily huge. Specially now that feats occupy much more space than in PF1, duplicated feats and rules occupy a large portion of the book. As I have stated in other threads, a consolidation of feats in a single feats chapter, separated by category (Class-restricted feats, general feats, skill feats, metamagic feats, weapon style feats, you get the idea) could help a lot.

I agree that powers and spells should be on the same chapter (called Magic!), but should be on different lists. Also, noting the class(es)/list a spell/power belongs to is something I miss A LOT when perusing the spells chapter.

Also, it seems we need a different organization of chapters. I think a proper combat chapter is needed, together with a more thorough explanation on things that were left out (on purpose or not), but frequently come into play (surprise rounds, coup-de-grace, attacking objects are just some I can think right now).

A more optimized organization could leave more space for the gamemastery chapter.

Finally, I think that while generally I really like the abilites of the classes, I agree the tone and language is WAY TOO MUCH technical, often to a fault. This seemed to me specially true in the Exploration chapter, where were it to be taken literally, it almost makes the game feel like a boardgame and not a RPG. Also, on the skills chapter, while I like the organization as I said before (the individual uses of each skill are really easy to find) we seriously need more flavor and examples of DCs and proficiency gates for each skill. This helps the GM a LOT.

When it should be the same, we can make it the same. But a lot of time it's better for a class to have something a little different. For instance, ranger might do well with something other than Double Strike for TWF that saves actions instead of avoiding multiple attack penalty, based on their mobile fighting style and their Hunt Target ability.

Mark, interesting idea. I was initially na advocate for standardized combat style feats, but I guess that tailoring specific feats to suit a class needs is a good idea, TBH.

I do, however, have a few concerns:

For one, we should get enough options to have a diverse playstyle for each martial class. A Generic feat list with basic functionality for various styles (and for the matter, metamagic and other feats, such as expanded heightening) could be made, while at the same time certain classes could have different versions or specific feats to tailor their needs.

If this leads to a feat (and page count) bloat, maybe consider condensing some of the weapon style feats. That can also free up some space and lower the opportunity cost of some feats at certain levels.

I do fear that tailoring too much for speciic classes can make the game feel cheesy or "gamey". Restricted feats have to make a LOT of sense world-wise to be specific to a certain class but not available to others.

I agree. The current system really bugs me, because there is not enough freedom to assign a relatively generic thing like, say, two weapon fighting to any class. What if I want to be a monk with two sais, or a ranger with a bow? There just aren't feats to support those builds because the two-weapon feats or archery feats are pigeonholed into specific classes.

One idea that I heard (I think on Know Direction) was that much like how there are now four spell lists (Arcane, Divine, Occult, Primal) and your class determines which you can pick from, there could be a few Feat lists and your class lets you pick feats from those lists.

So, for example, you could have a Weapon Master list, a Primal list, a Metamagic list, etc. Then you could say, for example, that the Ranger gets to pick class feats from the Weapon Master and Primal list, whereas the Druid gets to pick from the Primal and Metamagic lists. The names are all just examples, but you get the idea... you could allow things like weapon styles (two handed vs. ranged vs. dual-wielding) to be chosen by multiple classes. And the...

I proposed a similar idea on another thread. I think this may be the best compromise, offering general weapon style feats to martial classes, at the same time you could still offer niche options to specific classes.

I think that monsters don't need to be built as PCs. Not that they were previosuly, as in 3E/PF1 the system in place had several similarities to PC building but was a different beast altogether.

What I think it's important is to have a somewhat loose set of rules to building monster of a given difficulty, to ensure that the system remains consistent. I'll give some examples:

-- Monster abilities (specially humanoid monsters). Just as Half-Orc PCs can have Ferocity or Critical bonus for Orc weapons as ancestry features, I expect that Orc and Half-Orc monsters/NPCs to have similar "features". The same goes for goblin PCs and NPCs. Goblins in the Bestiary have "Goblin Scuttle" reaction, which to my knowledge PCs can't possibly have. This is completely arbitrary and inconsistent. Either make Goblin PCs capable of acquiring this ability (through ancestry feats) or change it to another PC Goblin feature, such as Very Sneaky.

-- Also, I think humanoid monsters should have base racial ability scores and a small subset of abilities to choose from, in case the DM wants to create different NPCs from what's presented by default.

-- Monster Skills, Attack bonuses, Perception and Saves all need to be tailored to fit the overall difficulty to it's level. That I get it. A particular monster might need an absurdly high Stealth modifier for it to work. Just increasing it's dexterity might skew other things (such as Hit bonus and reflex, which might no be ideal) and making it master or Legendary in Stealth might not be enough. So an arbitrary increase in Stealth is ok (call it a +4 "racial bonus" to stealth, or whatever). However, it's very useful for the DM to know when a particular subset of the monster statistic is arbitrarily skewed, so just adding a note at the end of the monster statistic (Bugbears have a +4 bonus to stealth checks) might suffice. This is particularly useful in case he needs to create a similar monster at higher level, or add NPC levels to it. It makes the math much easier and more consistent.

-- Monster Damage: for the most part, monster damage tailored to it's level. That's fine by me, with a note that I think we should have a good range of damage between monsters of the same level. Higher level monsters have higher base damage for their natural attacks, great. However, care must be taken when using monsters that use weapons. They MUST follow the same rules as PCs, for consistency sake, even if that means having them use magical weapons, which they should at higher levels. What I really don't want to see it's monsters like the Gnoll seargent (level 4) which arbitrarily uses a normal Scimitar that does 2d6 of damage. Just give it a +1 scimitar, or increase it's stregnth, it's no a big of a deal.

Agreed with what other have said in this thread. Redundancy seems to take an enormous part of the book. This ties in to an idea of having pools of class feats organized by theme: such as different Weapon style feats for martial classes, Metamagic feats for spellcasters, Evasion/Mettle feats for classes that improve on saves, etc. That could be referenced on a separate chapter for feats.

Also, I think powers should be on different section from spells. And spells should have at least on line to which spell(s) list(s) it belongs to (ie. Primal, Divine 2, instead of just Spell 2). It helps when reading through the spells chapter a lot.

Also, count me in as one person that wants the following formatting:
- Critical Success
- Success
- Failure
- Critical Failure

Thanks I will give greater detail on the encounters when the PCs get through them.

As for treasure I’ve used the treasure distribution per level rules and have had to pick and choose the treasure to give for every level. So far I have done this by converting the encounters first, figuring out how much to give per level(by using the table in the treasure section), picking the treasure, then dividing the treasure out to each encounter. So far it seems like not every encounter should have treasure, it seems to be easier to give most of the treasure and currency to the bosses/bigger fights, and the remainder in empty rooms. Things like the NPCs Armor and weapons just seem so lacklustre as treasure, though you can use them as a way of calculating the currency total the PCs get as part of the treasure distribution table. I will not be giving my PCs any of the NPCs mundane equipment as treasure (save for ammunition) basically going to consider it all of poor quality, beaten up in the fight, this will make the currency distribution seem more significant when they find a pouch of 20gp in the Boss’ room or on the boss.

I will post the treasure the PCs acquired in the encounters they acquired them in, then give a total list at their level up as a summary of everything they should have picked up for proper treasure distribution.

This has been my experience as well, and I'm creating NPCs using the exact rules for players.

In my conversion of Legacy of Fire for PF2, Dashki (ranger 2 from Howl of the Carrion King), has slightly lower To HIt (+7 vs. +8 from CR 2 monsters), similar HP and damage but much higher AC (19 or 20 with off-hand parry vs 15 to 17 from most CR 2 monsters). His skills have a much lower bonus, but that's probably due to Monster skills being erroneously high (devs have this noted in another thread).

In general, seems simple enough, at least for this level.

Honestly, the best suggestion that I've heard on this was two fold.

1) Convert the Bag of Holding into an Invested item so the only cost to use it is for you to invest it at the start of your day.

2) Potentially add a 'Handy Haversack' style benefit to it as an optional activate action that costs you a resonance to reach in and get exactly what you need.

Otherwise have it function like a very large bag.

With these changes it feels like it would be in a much better place.

Agreed

On to elaborate my ideas:

As the OP proposed, Combat feats could all be pooled together into a group of feats that could be selected as class feats by all (or almost all, see below) martial classes. For the purpose of this post, I'll call those feats "weapon style feats".

Anytime a martial class (i.e.: Fighter, Ranger, Barbarian, Paladin and maybe even Rogue) could select a class Feat, it can select a "Weapon Style" Feat instead. Some could even be class locked, if so desired. For instance, 2-handed weapon style feat would be restricted to Fighters, Rangers, Barbs and Paladins, but not accessible to Rogues. Barbarians could only access Dual Wielding and 2-Handed Style, etc.

Weapon style feats would be grouped around a theme. The main Groupings of feats could be:

** 1-Handed ("duelist") style (1 hand weapon + free off-hand).
** 2 Handed style (wields a 2-hander) - those would incorporate
** 1-Hand and Shield style
** Dual Wielding
** Crossbow
** Archery

This would increase the versatility of martial classes and open the possibility of non-standard class options (as stated previously, an archer Paladin, Two-handed Ranger, etc.

First, to explain the problem.

A ton of very generic combat feats like quick draw and power attack have been class locked, including the basic lines for each weapon, and generic maneuvers which could be learned by anyone with sufficient combat training, like I mentioned above.

To solve this, my suggestion is adding a new feat pool, Combat Feats.

Characters with a martial class (Rogue, Monk, Fighter, Barbarian, Ranger, Paladin) would be able to freely spend a class feat to take any one of these combat feats. (Existing pre-requisites would remain, of course.)

Characters who multiclass into one of those classes would also gain the ability to do this as part of their Archetype Dedication feat.

This leaves the ACTUAL class feat design space for things which interface directly with the class' features or flavour.

And, most importantly, this approach doesn't arbitrarily prevent people from making a Sword & Board Ranger or an Archer Paladin, or any similar flavours which might be slightly less common than your generic dual-wielding rangers or whatever, but is no less valid despite that.

It's definitely possible to create a solid class identity for every class without randomly gating off certain playing styles just because they're not the most common.

Interestingly, I was gonna suggest something similar. I really, REALLY like this idea and I think the system would benefit a lot from it. Once I get home I'll try to elaborate my ideas a little better, but just to be clear, I am very on board with this.

Pedro, you have a PM.

Thank you! As soon as I learn something, I'll let you know.

Pedro Sampaio wrote:

Vic, if possible could you give me an update on Order 4783479? Package 1111368.

Normally, I would have sent you a PM, but I learned something from your order.

It shipped August 1, with estimated delivery August 18, and did use a trackable service... but the last tracking entry is when it reached your city on August 6: "Delivery arranged no details expected."

So even some of the nominally trackable orders aren't fully trackable.

Thanks a lot, Vic!

Unfortunately, up to this day, I haven't received my order. Still, that must mean it's already here is Brazil. Some international shipping services stop tracking once it arrives here (for whatever reason)...

Does it say which company/delivery service was used? I'll try and contact them tomorrow.

Thanks again

In today's playtest this did not go over very well. encountering the Goblin Pyro who cast Burning Hands I was imediatly ased if he was a sorcerer or a wizard, since Goblins are a PC race now. I told them: neither. He's just a monster with spellcasting abilities...because.

Dunno, it seems to me as he has 1 level of Sorcerer (no bloodline though, but that can easily interpreted as a mistake).

What I don't like is that all Bestiary goblins have the Goblin Scuttle reaction, which seems to be something goblins apparently have, but no player can have through ancestry feats. But maybe that's some leftover from the earlier version os the system the Beastiary was based upon (as stated by the devs in other threads).

I think a possible solution would be, as stated in other similar threads, is to have a small table with samplse of stactic DCs for each skill use,. Then have the DC by level and difficulty table as an addon to judge things that fall outisde the scope of common DCs or to help judging a particular situation.

I’m converting Rise of the Runelords to 2nd edition and am using PC rules to build the bosses, except they only get 2 free +2 ability boosts after ancestry, Background and Class. But in keeping the stats block simple it’s more like Str mod goes up by +1 instead of giving them a an actual score.

Seems to be keeping the power level pretty well.

What I want to know is how to add classes to monsters. Such as for Eleryium the Quasit. Since there isn’t a witch class yet I was planning on giving her Sorcerer levels with a divine spell list but don’t know how to make the adjustments.

I'm planning on converting LoF to 2e as well.

Tha way I see it, just adding X levels to a moster should raise it's CR by the same amount. Seems easy enough, since adding a class level gives HP (class HP + CON mod), increases the prof. bonus by an equal ammount, therefore raising saves, AC and attacks. Consider adding some magical gear appropriate to the CR in case the monster uses weapons, and in case of natural weapons either just increase it's base damage to match or add a handswraps (as magical gear for an NPC as usual).

Maybe not 100% exact, but should work, by my preliminary calculations...

I agree. I think light shields should leave a hand free, while giving a hand free for casting or interacting (but not weapon use). 1 less AC than heavy shield and lower hardness is balancing enough.

Right now, Clerics and Druids don't really have an incentive to use light shields.

Maybe a solution would have 2 categories of monsters below first level:

Level 0 monsters become “level 1/2” or something similar. Something akin to what we have now in terms of power (ie. little less power than a level 1 mook).

Create a second category to emcompass monsters weaker than current level 0 monsters. Those could be called Level 0 now. They include those 1/3 and 1/4 CRs. That would only be threatening in bigger numbers.

Vic, if possible could you give me an update on Order 4783479? Package 1111368.

Thanks in advance!

Pedro Sampaio wrote:

I know you are probably very busy, but any chance you could give an expected delivery to Brazil (if possible, of course)?

One shipped yesterday with a delivery estimate of August 16.

Thanks for the quick response!

As always, great customer service from Paizo.

Now, on to thoroughly read the PDFs!

I posted this in the update thread:

While I still don't have a good idea of how long it's going to take, fulfillment has been speeding up; they're quickly approaching 15 percent shipped.

I don't have a good way at this time to look at orders in aggregate, but I can manually examine individual orders once they've shipped. Just to give you some idea of the timelines, I looked at 5 US and 5 international orders that shipped in the last few hours. All 5 of the US orders have expected delivery on August 3. International is (unsurprisingly) much more variable:

Destination: Japan. Expected delivery: August 7.
Destination: Italy. Expected delivery: August 3.
Destination: British Columbia. Expected delivery: August 8.
Destination: New Zealand. Expected delivery: August 13.
Destination: Sweden. Expected delivery: August 7.

Thank you for the update, Vic!

I know you are probably very busy, but any chance you could give an expected delivery to Brazil (if possible, of course)?

Cheers

Humm, interesting take on the Palalin. With the exception of a few details (I'll get on that), I like what I see.

So, LG only. Being fond of AD&D 2e Paladin, I like that Pallys are extremely restricted in alignment. Also, I think it's a good choice to focus e nail the LG aspect of it, then maybe expand to other alignments (ie: CE Blackguards...).

Also, The code. I like how restrictive the code is, but is more aligned to real game-play. I also liked how details in the code change depending on the deity (much like I really liked how Clerics now have specific sets of conducts to follow).

The focus on defense vs. offense (i.e. armor prof. vs weapon prof.), seems like a natural evolution of the class. Also, it helps to set them apart from fighters, the alter being the ultimate weaponmasters.

As far as class abilities go, seems like Pallys are not Vancian casters anymore, and generaly I like it. The litanies are apparently a spellcasting method unique to them, and seems to grasp my imagination, world-building wise.

As far as the only thing I'm not keen on, is the reaction ability. I wouldn't be too much bothered if it only meant as a counter-attack to protect allies. But the fact that it weakens them.... Firstly, it FEELS gamish as hell. Secondly, if a pally can debilitate an opponent with a weapon attack, why can he only do that on a counter? It makes absolutely no sense.

IMOI think they should get Attack of Oppornity and that's it.

Still not happy with spell points for powers activation...

Why not power points?!?

For what I saw, powers are spell-like, not exactly totally spells. Will obviously create confusions, it's not player-friendly.

I second that completely. We have Domain POWERS, Ki POWERS, Bloodline POWERS, Rage POWERS... You get the idea

I also think the obvious choice of name would be POWER Points, instead of Spell Points. Besides making no sense as a name whatsoever, Spell points gets even more convoluted with spell slots and spell levels and all that jazz.

Just my 2 cp.

Mbertorch wrote:

I know it's unlikely, but I would love if the devs weighed in on this. Even a vague "the ancestries are designed with versatility in mind, so don't worry about starting ability scores," (which I wouldn't like, but is at least something) or an equally nondescript "the ancestries could possibly change even regarding something as fundamental as ability scores, based on feedback" (which is something like which I hope to hear).

I'm not expecting a "hey, yeah, we'll change it from Charisma for all three races to something different. Thanks."

Just information that such a change is indeed possible would be AMAZING.

If I remember correctly, there was a stage of PF1 beta where Jason had been considering giving halflings +2 Wisdom instead of Charisma to be more different than gnomes but it got changed due to passionate feedback in favor of Charisma, so there's certainly precedent for changing the ability adjustments due to feedback!

That’s great news!

As I wrote in another post, I think that we should have +Con/+Int Gnomes. It reflects so much their inquisitive and curious nature. Besides, that makes them natural wizards and alchemists which seem much more gnomish to me (but then again, my favorite gnome of all time is Jan Jansen from Baldurs Gate 2...)

As for Goblins, I see no reason why they can’t have the same attribute distribution that they already have in PF1, plus the floating +2. I’m referring to +4 dex, -2 str, -2 cha. That way they have a special niche as the ultimate dex race with the disadvantage of having less attributes overall. In a similar way, they would be as half orcs were in 3.0/3.5, where they were the only race to receive a strength bonus but had penalties to int and charisma.

As for halflings, I would imagine they could have cha or wis and bonus. As long as they are different from goblins l, I’m fine.

As others have commented, I'm also against having 3 races with +Cha as their mental atribute boost.

I think at the very least Gnomes should have +2 Con / +2 Int (instead of charisma).

For Halflings, I could Imagine them having either +2 Wis or +2 Cha.

For Goblins, I think they should get +4 Dex, -2 str, -2 Cha (to compensate the +4 Dex), plus the +2 boost to any atribute besides Dex (as standard Ancestries get).

Just my 2cp

So is anybody else planning on playing a Goblin PC in Return of the Runelords, or in the heretofore unnanounced AP that follows it (which is reportedly "a doozy") to establish a Goblin as one of the great heroes of Golarion, at least in your particular version thereof?

I mean "a particular goblin saves the world in a particularly showy way" is going to change a lot of people's minds, both in terms of how people think of goblins and in terms of how goblins see themselves.

Funny thing. In our RotR campaign, we actually had something like that. Our group saved Chief Ripnugget instead of killing him, dunno why, maybe we found it hilarious when he begged for mercy or whatever. In any case, our GM went on with it, and made it so that he wanted to be an adventurer like us. He started following Shalelu Andosana, to learn the ways of the Ranger!!! Several adventurers later, there he was, a level 11 Ranger with his lizard companion! He even formed a rival adventuring party with Shelalu and another NPC (a Pathfinder bard). His adventuring group helped us a lot during Sins of the Saviours!

Needless to say, he quickly became one the most memorable NPCs in our group history. Gotta thank my GM for that!

Hi Pedro,

Thanks for the notification. Your subscriptions have been cancelled. You should get an email that confirms this change to your account.

Thanks!
Sharaya

Thank you for your consideration. I have just received the email with the confirmation.

Cheers!

Pedro Sampaio

As stated, please cancel my Pathfinder Adventure Path and Roleplaying Game subscriptions.

Thanks in advance,

Pedro Sampaio

Just sent an email with a response.

I noticed that order #3223792 is marked as suspended and is expected to be sent via Standard Postal Delivery as opposed to USPS Priority Mail (my usual shipping option). Any ideia why it changed? Is it possible to set it back to USPS Priority Mail? Also, it is August 14th and the order is still pending, which also means that I can't download the pdf for the Advanced Class Guide or Iron Gods #1.

Cheers!

Thanks for sending the pictures. I've responded to your email with some more questions.

Thanks!
Sharaya

Bump! Any news?

I'm sorry to hear that your packages are being handled so poorly! Please do send the pictures! That would be helpful. Our email address is customer.service@paizo.com

In the meantime, I'll check with the warehouse to see if we have any other feasible shipping options, and we get back to you as soon as we know more.

Thanks!
Sharaya

I have just sent you an email with pictures from order #3194731.

Thanks again for the support!

I am sad to inform about the terrible quality the USPS has been offering as of late. Almost every single order from my subscriptions for the past 6 months has had some damaged books, with signs of bad handling of the package itself, such as the most recent one (Paizo order #3194731), which came with a corner of the package torn out. This obviosuly resulted in damage to the contents inside, such as cover of the books, signs of bending, sometimes even with shearing of the cover, especially the softcover AP volumes. I do have pictures of the books and the package from this last order, if it would be of any help.

I am aware that, as I live in Brazil and this is an international order, some risks are involved when handling the package over great distances. However, I subscribe to SEVERAL international magazines (including Nature, National Geographic, Neurology, among others) and frequently buy books from Amazon.com, and yet they NEVER arrive in such bad conditions. This for me is a strong sign that the problem does not lie with the Brazilian postal service, and is instead a problem within the USPS, for whatever reason.

I would very much prefer to stay a Pathfinder subscriber, mainly because I want to support you guys in the best way possible. So please, try to find a solution to this. Perhaps using another type of package, one that maybe costs a little more but offers more protection? Maybe offering an alternate shipping company? Whatever the case, I just wanted to add that I want to see these problems solved, because I don't want to be forced to cancel my Pathfinder subscriptions.

Thanks in advance, and sorry for the small rant,

Pedro Sampaio