Perpdepog's page

Someone decided earnestly enjoying something on the internet is cringe and people are deathly afraid of being cringe.

That and plain ol' human nature. We tell roughly three times as many people about things that upset us as make us happy, after all. Makes a lot of sense when spreading warnings about not eating the spider-shaped berries, but not quite so much here.

Devise a stratagem received the following update:

“Devise a Stratagem had some changes. Remove the fortune trait from the traits line. Under Attack Stratagem, change the first sentence to “If you Strike the chosen creature before the start of your next turn, your Strike gains the fortune trait and you must use the result of the d20 roll for your Strike’s attack roll instead of rolling.” Replace the final sentence with the following two sentences. “When you make this substitution, you can add your Intelligence modifier to your attack roll instead of your Strength or Dexterity modifier. If you Strike with a melee weapon, melee unarmed attack, or thrown weapon, it must have the agile or finesse trait to benefit from the substitution.””

As written, this change might exclude bombs from being used with devise a stratagem. Depends on whether bombs count as thrown weapons - they don’t have the trait, but are stated to be thrown. Regardless this is a pretty big issue as there’s an entire investigator subclass based in large part on having bombs and it’s neutered without devise a stratagem accesses.

“The new wording applies to the same weapons as before, but also works on ranged unarmed attacks like the leshy’s seedpod.”

However, it also says this. And since bombs worked with devise a stratagem before, and there’s an entire subclass for them, that makes me think this is a simple error.

You do know the Alchemical Sciences methodology explicitly doesn't let you use its vials to creat bombs, right? You can only make elixirs or alchemical tools.

So "Resist All X" has become more like "Resist Any X", where the creature choose X amount of damage to resist from any of the incoming damage, but no longer all of the incoming damage. This weakens many higher level creatures so their hit points might need calibration. That or create a "Resist Any Two X", though I don't think that'd be received well. Would some simply need to list out more damage types to reflect the designer's intentions? Hmm.

I'm gonna borrow this turn of phrase, thanks; "resist any" makes a lot of sense to me as a way to think of "resist all," now.

I really like how all the dragon types got a couple pages of nothing but lore on their behaviors inDraconic Codex. I still chuckle thinking about adamantine dragons becoming obsessive fans.

Also really glad to see how breath weapons got experimented with, like the time dragon's breath weapon switching from just electricity in the previous edition to being slow-based now, and able to blink enemies who crit fail out of the fight for a turn.

Battlecry! and Draconic Codex are absolutely amazing books. Shining Kingdoms and Rival Academies also gave me some of my fave new archetypes, the Blackjacket and the remastered Runelord, and a bunch of fun lore besides. Going further back, the Tian Xia stuff was also absolutely wonderful, and while it's got some rough edges with the mythic system I really enjoyed the cool flavor and options in War of Immortals. (The multiple month-long lead-up to which deity was going to bite it was also super exciting and fun to be part of. Not a book, just something I wanted to mention.)

I'm also really looking forward to the Hellfire Crisis stuff coming out; I'm a sucker for more troop statblocks, no idea why, and I like what little I've heard about the remastering and consolidating of the Hellknight archetype.

Nice, and thanks. Not all of those are my faves but there's at least one in there that makes me real happy.

Darkorin wrote:

I would love some clarification about what is really supposed to be a gun for Operatives.

The current definition of all ranged weapons with the analog or tech trait covers pretty much everything, including melee weapons with the thrown traits when they are thrown.

Is that intended?

I think the only ranged weapon that is currently excluded from that definition of gun is the Shobhad Longrifle, which feels more like an omission than true intent.

Like a thrown knife is a gun but that sniper isn’t… something feels weird.

Seconded. For one, while it is easy to assume that the shobhad longrifle is analog due to the fact Starfinder weapon's must include a trait of Archaic, Analog, or Tech, of which the shobhad longrifle has neither. The definition of gun is often troublesome. Things that are not guns are considered guns (a knife is a gun when thrown, and a shuriken drone is a gun), and things that very much are guns are not considered guns (a dwarven scattergun is not a gun). And while we don't have a bow yet, bows had the analog trait in Starfinder 1E, and if a bow comes to Starfinder 2E trait with any trait except archaic, then a bow will be a gun. When the GM Core suggests giving Operatives the training in all ranged weapons in a Pathfinder game, it raises question on why this cannot just be a default.

NGL, shobhad longrifle bugs me more for breaking the upgrade system. It gets two extra slots for a scope and a silencer when no other weapon seems to get the same. I first assumed this was how "specific magic weapons" would be introduced to the game, and that could still be the case in Tech Core, but I'm becoming increasingly convinced it's a side-effect of the longrifle being ported over from an AP volume to a different supplemental product.

keftiu wrote:

BotBrain wrote:

Yeah the runesmith is definetly not a jistkan automaton. Either there's a lore expansion coming detailing modern automatons or we're getting some flavour of awakened contruct heritage.

I'd previously thought/hoped they might be a Wyrwood, but the art's looking less and less like that.

A generic construct ancestry could have a wyrwood heritage added down the line. (Lost Omens: Arcadia next year trust me)

I hope that's not the case. (The wyrwoods being a heritage as opposed to their own ancestry, I mean, not Lost Omens: Arcadia coming out.) I'd rather see wyrwoods become their own ancestry with their own heritages that reflect things such as the reasons they were originally built, what generation of wyrwood they are, or different things their aeon stones can do than try to squish all of their culture and uniqueness into a singular heritage and perhaps a qualifying ancestry feat or two.

I feel pretty similarly, though less strongly, about awakened constructs in general, to be honest. Battlezoo's golemborn ancestry, while cool, did show me what happens when you try to squish a bunch of only somewhat connected construct types into a single ancestry, and the result is that none of those types get as much room to breathe. Admittedly that ancestry is also trying to navigate capturing the feel of playing a golem at the table while having to remove many of a golem's abilities, chiefly their immunities, for the sake of table balance, which I don't envy.

The Nanocyte... feels like it would work better as an archetype, like the Mind Smith...

It's going to be an archetype in Tech Core, as it happens.

Im fond of the idea that once a body has been dead long enough, it loses some of its 'affiliation' to its original soul (presumably this takes about as long as for the soul to be judged) and at that point you can stuff any old scrap of a soul into it to animate a mindless undead. Same with spontaneously risen undead in areas with enough ambient void and some wayward soulstuff not quite strong enough to form a haunt or independent spirit creature.

We've seen that happen in an AP, actually. Heck, it happens pretty fast from an in-universe perspective, too. Spoiler for Tyrant's Grasp.

The circumstances are about as extenuated as circumstances can get, but it's still cool that it's happened at least once to my knowledge.

I really hope we get an awakened clockwork construct ancestry; constructs are one of my favorite creature types, and clockwork is one of my favorite varieties of construct.

Thanks for the heads-up; just picked up the book for myself.

James Jacobs wrote:

In 1E, elementals and outsiders are among those creature types that can't be raised from the dead or resurrected. That's not the case in 2nd edition Pathfinder, where those effects are limited by the level of the dead creature and the time they've been dead and not by what KIND of creature they were.

Off-topic question but reading this got me curious: RAW can you resurrect an undead who has been destroyed?

I know that PC skeleton characters can be resurrected as skeletons, as per Book of the Dead. I don't know if that same rule applies to other undead PCs though.

Edit: And I've got no idea if a mindless/soulless undead could be resurrected. I agree with JJ that it'd be a cool spell/ritual to include.
That, or you could reintroduce necrocrafts from PF1 back into the game, and fold some lore about "resurrection" of undead servants into their lore.

The Bestiary thing is not referring to Bestiary 6 the book, it's referring to page six of the first PF2 Bestiary which is where the template is found.

It's also worth noting that the Elite template wasn't even a template in PF1E; the template that most closely maps to Elite was called Advanced, instead.

It also wasn't created in Bestiary 6, but rather the first bestiary, so it'd be doubly weird for a pagenation note to reference a later text.

That'd be cool. Grioths never had a whole ton going on, so I could see someone wanting to fill in the corners to make them an ancestry in a weirder, more cosmic horror-y mold.
On the other hand it could just be the new trend, one which I like, that we've been seeing in bestiaries where the authors add a little texture to a monster by showing they won't all attack you, always, all the time.

Us ground-bound creatures don't think about it much, but there's winds on Earth as permanent as rivers - the trade winds and the polar vortex, for example. El Niño should be a suitable binding for a nymph, surely?

And if we want a Golarion-based example, you can't get much more permanent than the Eye of Abendego. It's been raging for, what, a couple hundred years now?

(Incidentally, I really hope we get nymphs tied to the Eye as monsters if not ancestry options; that'd be real cool.)

This same argument is valid for D&D too. I don't consider the changes from 5e to 5.5e like a fully incompatible edition in the same way as the remasters aren't either. I can even extend this to 3.5 and 3.0. In the end, all they are glorified errata that are due to have a bit higher number of balance and improvement changes and to the desire to try to earn a bit more selling as a “new edition”.

I like the term subversion with a period because it clearly and directly indicates that “look, it's the same game, compatible with the same material, just with several improvements”. Even though the term “remaster” conveys a similar message, it still causes confusion because it can still seem like a new edition to laypeople, especially when they see the term “legacy” elsewhere.

I have to admit I'm confused by these two paragraphs. You start off by saying that using the ".5" designation is a way to market "glorified errata" in a way that "can earn a bit more selling as a 'new edition'," but then say that you like it because it it clearly communicates that it is the same game, but with some balance changes. Those seem like two contradictory positions to hold; either the .5 designation is intended as a marketing tactic, and it's confusing to players because companies are trying to pass off errata passes as new editions, or it's a method for clearly communicating that the .5 edition is the same game, just with some errata changes.

The big problem with this terminology is that many players on 3.5 considered it incompatible; for that reason, they thought they had to buy the new material, and many players stopped accepting 3.0 material because “it was poorly balanced” (as if 3.5 ever was) or similar excuses. But in most of the games I played, it was normal to accept 3.0 material that hadn't been reprinted, especially adventures and material for the DM to use, and we simply reinforced that the “repeated” material that should be prioritized was the 3.5 material, as it was considered a kind of errata.

This bad reputation of 3.5 as being “a D&D 3.0 with a big errata that WotC made to make more money from players” is precisely what kept D&D and PF2e from using this nomenclature up to now. But it was always very efficient in simply showing what it was about.

It is precisely in this aspect that I can't see differences in the approach of 5e and 5.5e and Pathfinder 2e legacy and remaster. For me, they are all just big errata with a new cover, and nothing is better than a versioning nomenclature to indicate this. They only avoided it because, for some players, it created a kind of bad reputation (although PF1 greatly benefited from being called D&D 3.75).

A couple points I want to make here.

Firstly, doesn't this work more as a mark against using the .5 designation, though? Your playgroup aside, if common consensus is that .5 edition stuff encourages people to stop using the old material and buy the new stuff, and Paizo's goal with the Remaster designation is to communicate to players that they don't have to do that, then that sounds like a black mark against switching the designation now, doesn't it? I don't mean to negate your own opinions or experiences here, and largely agree with you that such designations can be confusing, but you talk about both your personal experiences and how they ran counter to the more public narrative and discourse. If public discourse sees a .5 designation as an invalidation of the old material, and Paizo isn't looking to invalidate their old material, then using the .5 designation wouldn't serve them.

I also want to push back on the "D&D 3.75" nickname for PF1E being a positive, or at least an unalloyed positive. This is my own anecdotal evidence, but I generally heard that term thrown around more as an epithet or as a derogatory term used to highlight how similar Pathfinder was to D&D 3.5. The connotations shifted over time, particularly as people became less and less satisfied with 4E, but it wasn't how the term was used initially. The negative impression would be reinforced if Paizo suddenly decided to change their edition naming. The Remaster has been out for, what, a couple years now? We have to consider things like institutional memory when thinking of rhetorical changes like renaming; if people have associated a .5 designation with trying to sell errata as a new edition in the past, as you do, or if it risks invalidating materials without that designation, as you've pointed out, then switching from the term Remaster to 2.5 this late in the game would risk associating Pathfinder 2E with both of those trends, and for not all that much benefit.

Anyway, for me it only complicates things. I was happy that WotC finally simplified things a bit on their side; I think it would be great if Paizo also simplified things and called it something clear that reduces doubts.

I'm not sure it would reduce doubts. Name changes are going to confuse people pretty much no matter what, and at this point you're asking for a second name change on top of the name change you are already pointing out is confusing. That sounds like it's just going to lead to more confusion to me, not less.

I still use Premaster most of the time, but I'm a sucker for rhyming. I'd probably use Legacy with people I knew weren't part of the fandom around the time of the change and were primarily familiar with AoN.

The store page for Feybound is up!

I really like the narrative conceit of the book taking place at an all-included Firstworld gala, that feels very apropos and fun ^_^

The narrative frameworks and emphasis on the narrators' authorial voice are probably my favorite changes we've seen out of PF2E books, and I love that they're getting more emphasized as we go along.

I hope our narrator for this book is super catty, dishing out dirt to the reader on the various characters they spotlight.

I really want the spathinae to come back for a few reasons. I've just got a soft spot for any insectile, creepy crawly-type aliens, they've always been some of my faves. I also like colony entities, and would love to see a playable, non-evil one. I'm real curious how the mechanics would translate into the PF2/SF2 engine. Finally, I'm hoping for them because it's likely the closest I'll ever get to being able to play a swarm strider/worm that walks unless my aberration-focused dream book ever becomes a reality.

Everyone in here is giving really good advice, though I did want to correct a few things with Mathmuse's discussion on magic item crafting.

The magic item crafting system has changed drastically from PF1 to PF2. Becoming a magic-item crafter is easy: gain expert proficiency in Crafting (typically 3rd level) take the 2nd-level Magical Crafting skill feat (retrain your 2nd-level skill feat or wait for the 4th-level skill feat). This covers all magical crafting except alchemy, which has its own Alchemical Crafting feat.

While Mathmuse is correct that all you need to craft magic items is the Magical Crafting feat (which, incidentally, does not require you to be a caster now) I believe they are incorrect about the trick to getting the feat with a 2nd-level skill feat pick. The retraining rules say,

When retraining, you generally can't make choices you couldn't make when you selected the original option. For instance, you can't replace a skill feat you chose at 2nd level for a 4th-level one, or for one that requires prerequisites you didn't meet at the time you took the original feat. If you don't remember whether you met the prerequisites at the time, ask your GM to make the call.

You can't pick a skill feat that requires you to be expert in a skill if you couldn't be expert in that skill at 2nd level. Also,

But recall that no-one in PF1 crafts their own plate armor because mundane crafting is slow and would take months? Magical crafting in PF2 is just as slow as mundane crafting. Unless the campaign has months of downtime, players will buy or loot their magic items. And since making magic items takes only one skill feat, the GM can easily justify finding an 8th-level Guildmaster who can make magic items up to 12th level.

Crafting actually takes two days, or one day for someone using the item's formula, rather than months. My guess is Mathmuse is thinking about how crafting past the initial one-or-two days of setup reduces the cost of the materials for making the item, down to a final cost of 50% of the item's full price if enough time is spent. It is possible to not take any extra days and pay the item's full price after two days.

The main use of Magical Crafting on a player is that it grants the ability to transfer weapon and armor runes in the field in a single day. However, the PF2 Remaster gave most weapon-based classes proficiency in all martial weapons, so rather than transferring a +2 weapon potency rune from a looted +2 spiked chain to the bard's rapier, the bard can use the spiked chain until they reach town and let a smith transfer the rune.

This is very true and correct. Honestly transferring runes may be something to get used to. Characters can make easier use of weapons and armor you drop into adventures; they can always make use of superior fundamental runes they find, and can generally make use of property runes as well as long as their weapons or armor aren't specific magic items.

Perpdepog wrote:

Justnobodyfqwl wrote:

I think it's genuinely kind of an accomplishment to manage to turn even a thread arguing about the benefits of adventuring with your coochie out into a back and forth rules minutia debate.

It's one of my favorite aspects of the Pathfinder fanbase, at least as long as the debates don't get acrimonious or toxic. I'm not being facetious here; it's genuinely always fun to stumble into threads and conversations where those sorts of discussions are running in tandom.

You think this odd? You should see the thread he started about poop.

RD is a really, really weird guy.

I'm confused; I never said I thought the conversations odd. Think maybe this was a response to the wrong post?

Can't have them all right away I suppose, but I love the osharus and hope they get implemented soon. Similar to what HolyFlamingo! said, I hold out hope those might be one of the unsaid Galactic Ancestries ones.

Wrikreeches, and Shimreens I also feel have a good chance, though Morlamaws I'm not sure where they'd be placed.

Though I feel Embri would be part of an adventure.

An embri-focused adventure wuld be really cool. Navigating through their deadly bureaucracy, having to fight a fiend or two, and with some mask-themed magic items and some fiendish weapons to round out the toolbox in the back.

I think it's genuinely kind of an accomplishment to manage to turn even a thread arguing about the benefits of adventuring with your coochie out into a back and forth rules minutia debate.

It's one of my favorite aspects of the Pathfinder fanbase, at least as long as the debates don't get acrimonious or toxic. I'm not being facetious here; it's genuinely always fun to stumble into threads and conversations where those sorts of discussions are running in tandom.

I'm surprised osharus, wrikreechees, shimreens, embri, and morlamaws haven't been announced yet. I recall them all being resonably popular.

There's another reason why getting trophies as quest rewards is beneficial, it gives the GM another lever to pull when they want to incentivize the slayer to adventure that doesn't clash with a heavily themed campaign.

The slayer is kinda out of luck, trophy diversity-wise, if the GM really, really wants to do an undead campaign, for example. Getting trophies as quest rewards, not just as rewards from hunts, gives the GM a way to help the slayer out while keeping the theme of their campaign intact. Heck it could even be a handy way for the GM to slip the slayer some helpful abilities on the sly and keep them interested in the quest, getting specific trophies from quest givers, especially if trophies end up taking up more of the class budget come final release.

Also, put me in the camp of folks thinking there should be a way to take a trophy from a surprise wandering monster. I can only speak to my own experience, but at least half of the dragons who have shown up in campaigns I've run or played in did so as surprise, wandering monsters showing up from an unlucky roll of the dice.

Finoan wrote:

Mechanically you need to not be prevented from using Manipulate actions (such as from Restrained) and will suffer any failure chances from conditions like Grabbed. And since the spell has a range of Touch, then the target will need to be in your natural reach.

But don't add more mechanics restrictions than that because of narrative description. The Manipulate trait lists making gestures as qualifying, and you can do that with your hands full. And you can make contact for delivering the spell with any body part.

So yes, you can cast Lay on Hands or Vampiric Feast with your hands full.

I vaguely remember it being mentioned as a deliberate clarification that spellcasters are supposed to be able to cast their spells with their hands full. Maybe in the Remaster announcements and summaries of changes? Or maybe I am just hallucinating that.

It was in the core spellcasting rules before the Remaster.

CRB pg 303 wrote:

A somatic component is a specific hand movement or gesture that generates a magical nexus. The spell gains the manipulate trait and requires you to make gestures. You can use this component while holding something in your hand, but not if you are restrained or otherwise unable to gesture freely.

Spells that require you to touch the target require a somatic component. You can do so while holding something as long as part of your hand is able to touch the target (even if it's through a glove or gauntlet).

Player Core changed that description and removed the section on somatic components, so it doesn't seem to be spelled out any more. But the only mention of needing a free hand is under Costs and Loci.

PC pg 300 wrote:

As part of Casting the Spell, you retrieve the locus (if necessary, and if you have a free hand), and you can put it away again if you so choose.

Though there's slashing gust, a specific spell that does require having a free hand (and gets a bonus if you have two).

Correctified the link because they meant, and it links to, slashing gust instead of gale blast.

Oooooooh, exciting! Does that mean we'll be seeing a Darklands-focused book to include player ancestries too? One can hope.

I'm not the biggest fey fan overall, they've just never jived with me, but those ancestries and possible archetypes sound really cool. Also looking forward to seeing what we get on the Eldest; those guys don't tend to get a lot of page space to themselves, so having more room to stretch should give us some cool lore!

I feel like there's potential for a nice middle ground between "My level 1-4 filled out all the types of trophy I'm going to need until 16+" and "I just levelled up, so I need a full suite of new trophies to remain relevant."

For one, making larger, broader tiers might be an option so that the 'tier' of your trophy matters enough to keep you hunting for better trophies but also make it so that they don't do the magic item thing of being unreliable or useless two levels after you outgrow them.

Just drawing numbers out of a hat, what if a monster that's level 8-14 allowed you to create a "master trophy" and likewise 15+ offers you a "legendary trophy". Or, to make it even more intuitive, you gain access to a class feature at 7 and 15 that allows the creation of master and legendary trophies respectively. Since you'd already need to hunt an equal or higher level foe, it pre-bakes the need for higher level foes into these new trophies' requirements.

(sure, it could also create a scenario where suddenly at these levels a Slayer might be motivated to dump their trophy case and go off into the woods to find 5-8 specific monsters, but the class as written already has that as a level 1 motive, this just recreates it)

... Meanwhile I don't think the difference of power would be too great. Enough to add a slight edge or other quality of life tidbit, but not enough that your old trophies feel bad to use until you get a chance to go hunting again.

(Of course this comes with a downside that every signature and secondary tool would need to come with some way to improve over 3 tiers of trophy, which might be a lot of page space and design to toss in unless it was something simple with purely numerical bonuses)

It also comes with the cost of increasing the cognitive load your trophies take up. This is inevitable if trophies are going to do any more than they already do, and isn't necessarily bad, just notable. It's an aspect I don't often see brought up with these trophy discussions so I figured I'd point it out, though.

The word "Prop" has three definitions in the Etymonline dictionary.

1. In aviation Prop is short for Propeller.
2. In theater Prop is short for Property.
3. In construction Prop means a brace or support. It might be short for Propagation, because it came from the Middle Dutch proppe which is a vine trellis.

Given that a Prop-based daredevil feature is called Propelling Strides, Prop might be short for Propel here. Otherwise, none of the meanings of Prop mean an object to push off or slam into.

In English we do have a name for an object to push off of for extra speed: starting block. Two words is a bit much for the term, so let's shorten that to "Block."

Won't using the word block confuse people in a game where many characters use shields, and Shield Block is the name of a commonly-used feat?

Also, I'd like to point out that the current use of the term does fit with your definitions, specifically definition three. What are pillars and walls other than supports?

I'd also love to know how this is supposed to work, mostly because opening up daredevils to two-handed, highly mobile builds sounds like a very unique niche that would be great to play.

Count me in agreement, too. As it stands you have to wait until, what, level 11 or so before you can start picking skills that aren't either of athletics or acrobatics if you want to keep them both as high as they can go? Something which you are hyper-incentivized to do because of how many of your feats run off of them, and even more so because you're going to be using the majority of those feats at a penalty.

Heck I'd not be upset if the daredevil got auto-scaling proficiencies for both skills at 3, 7, and 15, or if they got some kind of funky bespoke skill that combined the two.

Yes, "typically" gives an out re: humanoids, but I'm thinking of a perverse Slayer that atypically keeps trophies of their peers. They're likely a diverse group that possess several spell Traits. Good pickens.

"We really need a frontline Wizard."
"For your trophy case?"
"Ha, ha. No. Not that I wouldn't utilize all my resources."
"So yes."
"Maybe, but remember that time a ghoul gnawed off your hand and you bled to death? I do. It's right here."
"Buddy, that's gruesome."
"It's a joke. But seriously, I've got to thank you because it biting your hand off and then you dying both gave me an extra oomph toward victory."
"Stop it. Your humor's not funny, it's just..."
"Relentless?"
*groan*

My first thought was almost the opposite, a slayer who has "trophies," more like keepsakes, of all of their party members so they can defeat monsters with the power of friendship.

"With these mementos, it's like my friends have always got my back!"
"We're literally right behind you."

NoxiousMiasma wrote:

So you'd prefer the class be named Buffy Van Hellsing Bloodborne Witcher?

How did you guess the name of my OC do not steal Slayer character? /silly

Firstly, how dare you steal my character name! Secondly, that's Professor Abraham Buffy Van Hellsing Bloodborn Witcher Summers of Rivia to the pair of you. I didn't write the curricula for monstrology and monstronomy to have people forget my proper title.

I like the idea of it being usable once per minute as well. It is tactical and means you get one nice, big hit in, and it's pretty easy to justify narratively, as well. Just say that a weapon's internals can't handle putting out that much power at once more than once a minute or so safely. Any more and it'd fry itself from the inside out.

What if you had various prodding nodes installed in armor. Small solenoids with rubber prods built in an array around your back and shoulders. It prods you as your communication partner would prod you when conversing naturally. And the best part is, since it's direct, it requires no need to dedicate a hand to a touch screen which might be hard to read through an air-tight glove, and alike prods you directly, instead of outside touches being blunted by your armor.

I don't think you'd even need to go as far as to build mechanical (meaning machines that move) aids into your armor. PF2 already has impulse control units that can allow someone to translate nerve impulses into a machine; why not have a series of nodes in your armor that do the opposite? Have them connected to your comm unit or your armor's sensors and haptically relay information to the user. You'd have the benefits of protactile information without needing to worry about teeny pistons digging into your body whenever you got hit or fell over.

Teridax wrote:

I agree, I honestly don't think it would be broken for a Daredevil of any size to be able to move creatures of any size, nor even use props of any size. Given how situational repositioning and props are to begin with, the more opportunities the class has to make use of those, the better.

It's also the class identity, in a lot of ways. That needs to work against iconic enemies otherwise what's the point? "My class doesn't function against a dragon" is an absolutely baffling design decision for a class built around taking risks and using maneuvers with the scenery?

What could fit that more than trying to use those on on a giant dragon?

Yeah. Currently, the class can't use its abilities to emulate Los Tiburon, "The Shark of the Land!," for one thing ... and that just ain't right.

I think either prop damage could be more consistent (maybe it's a smaller amount but is dealt whenever you do a manuever?), or... They lean into it being risky and difficult, and pump up the damage it does and make it a lot more risk-reward.

I like both of these ideas, but I like the first a bit more. The second does feed into the risk/reward aspects of the class, but the first helps the daredevil actually deal consistent damage, which I think would help put a clock on fights and make the daredevil feel even better for doing all their maneuvers.

Momentum better suits what's actually happening in most instances. Building up momentum, losing it in an instant, regaining it an instant later, having few if any physiological or weightlifting effects, more circumstantial ones re: placement or maneuvering. Yeah, it's Momentum.

And let's not forget Poppets and other non-biological entities!

This is a bit of a reach, because it relies on knowledge of the game, but Momentum as a mechanic name also gives a very different feel from the swashbuckler, who daredevil keeps getting compared to. Swashies use up their Panache in one burst with their finishers, waiting for the right time to make that stylish strike. Momentum, in contrast, connotes something you want to keep building, keep going, never stop, never slow down, which it sounds like daredevil wants to do.

The more I think about it the more I'm liking it, and I'm trying to not get too attached because I'm suspecting it won't be changing.

Especially since larger foes tend to show up at higher levels. To my knowledge there aren't many, if any, low-level gargantuan enemies, but they start showing up later on.

I iz Trait?

In Soviet Irrisen, trait is you!

Perpdepog wrote:

Also, small quibble, but it feels odd you can't get acid as a damage type from a trophy. Harvesting some kind of acidic gland sounds like exactly the kind of thing you'd want to harvest.

Can't you? A trophy gets damage types from any type of damage the creature could do that isn't from spells. Acid just isn't on the list of options for your generic free trophy.

Ah, thanks for the catch there.

The sidebar on trophies talks about humanoid enemies having trophies often be items from them. So you keep a rare coin from the dragon's hoard or the like? Maybe the thankful townsfolk give you a memento?

This is where my mind went. You can also see it as the sympathetic magic that thaumaturges tap into, as well. The signat ring from the defeated vampire lord resonates with some of its left over power, and now you're tapping into that power for yourself.

For that matter, just say all your trophies from humanoid enemies are bits of clothes or adornments that function like nearly expended magic items. That's what adventurers are doing anyway when they loot fallen foes.

I don't really think trophies need to do more on their own, primiarly for the reasons others have mentioned; monsters and PCs are built with different assumptions in mind, and letting PCs poach, har-har, those abilities for themselves sounds like a balancing nightmare.

That being said, I think feats could do more to help with trophies feeling like they do more. For one thing, why do your trophies have traditions? They don't seem to do much; you can't even use a trophy to allow yourself to pick different spells should you decide to be a spellcasting slayer. You're limited to occult, or divine if you have a specific tool. I think the spellcasting feats should let you lock in your tradition based off of a trophy.
Also, small quibble, but it feels odd you can't get acid as a damage type from a trophy. Harvesting some kind of acidic gland sounds like exactly the kind of thing you'd want to harvest.

It also just encourages DMs to throw boss encounters at players constantly, which I think is bad.

Not really. You only need a single on-level enemy, which isn't a big deal on its own.

I'd honestly rather lose that big of flavor description than try to bend the mechanics to work around it.

My silly persnickety opinion is that "adrenaline" feels too modern as a term. Like, IRL the hormone itself was first isolated in 1897, and then the drug name adrenalin is from about 1901, which feels a little late for where Golarion's general tech level is.

Maybe "rush" or something?

The one I've heard that I quite liked, assuming name changes were on the table, is Momentum. I'd argue it even connotes the feeling of wanting to do something Risky for a greater advantage every turn more than adrenaline does.

From a game balance perspective its probably a bit of a problem but not a huge one. You're essentially giving everybody access to the Vicious Swing feat if they take a boost weapon. And the consensus on that feat (at least the last time I glanced at the consensus) is that it is sometimes better than swinging twice and sometimes not. Of course, the math changes somewhat for starfinder as there are generally less damage bonuses being handed out so the damage dice are a larger part of a characters damage.

From a game world/variety point of view then yeah, it becomes a larger issue. Boost weapons are absolutely significantly better than most other weapons, they relegate low level Solarion weapons into the "mostly trash" category, etc.

Another potential issue is that it allows characters to use Vicious Swing at range. My guess is that's why OP brought up the plasma caster instead of, say, the fangblade.

Honestly, I really like the idea that Boost bumps up the weapon's damage dice by one step, maybe even two. That'd grant an average of 1-2 extra damage per damage die, which still deals more damage than you'd otherwise get, but less damage than the current Boost deals. It's also got the twin advantages of effectively being Two-Handed for weapons that either already require two hands, or don't require you to use up your other hand, in exchange for some battery charge and an action, and gives players that little dopamine kick of getting to swap out their normal batch of dice for different, bigger dice.

I also think that Mark Quarrey should perhaps let you know the level, or at least viability, of your quarry before you start it. As it stands the ability reads that you take ten minutes and then get told whether those minutes you spent actually matter because that's when you discover the level of your quarry. That doesn't feel great and leads to spending extra time that would be tedious at best and lead to the party falling behind in a time-sensitive situation at worst.

Also, as a suggestion for hunting creatures below your level but trying to retain the "worthy prey" aspect of Mark Quarry, what if you need to use Mark Quarry against an enemy/enemies who are collectively 40 ExP? It's more of an abstraction than level, but it makes the ability more flexible; a single enemy the same level as the party is 40 ExP.

Edit: And just realized what I'm proposing is basically Pack Slayer, but with fewer restrictions, oopse.