Perpdepog's page

Yep, and I'm already hyped to eventually play a power armor-wearing guardian.

Some people might even try to absorb an Exemplar's blood/lifeforce to try and become one.

THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!

Good on those two adventurers for identifying Grimmyr as an ally and not judging him on his size. My first assumption definitely wasn't that they were the villains of this story and were trying to rope our Guardian into holding the town hostage. Nope, I trusted them immediately as I should have it turns out.

I also definitely trusted those two adventurers were upstanding folks right away and didn't suspect they were the ones luring the monsters to the town, say, to reap the rewards of a perpetual contract, only to do the same thing in the neighboring village, no sir. Didn't think that for even a moment!

Wasn't it changed because DR to all physical types is now baked in as a core function. The playtest you had your armours specialisation type and that was it asides from intercepting.

Now (from what I've seen of the posted previews) its clearer to understand and you don't have potentially two competing types of DR (which makes the lower one redundant).

That's what I've been gathering too, yeah. You've got physical resistance all the time now, which sounds very cool. I'm genuinely super jazzed for guardian now.

Drokalion's area of concern just saying "Being a lion" kills me.

Also that his worshipers seem equally cool with helping lions, being lions, and--one way or another--feeding lions.

Prince Maleus wrote:

I still feel(and Hope) that Impossible will be an early 2026 release. Just based on how previous playtests corresponded to the release of the book.

And at GenCon they've always announced a new book with a playtest after the con.

Have we ever had a class book get published outside of Gencon release?

Yes, War of Immortals came out in November (Actually October, I'm a dummy). It's an outlier though.

Edit: to put in the correct month, and for being ninjaed.

Personally, I'm hoping for the return of the impossible bloodline sorcerer. Maybe with focus spells that cause confusion and can create temporary items.

I'd love that. Impossible is one of my favorite bloodlines, up there with nanyte for real weird and unique takes IMO.

For the conditions, don't forget that confused, paralyzed, and grabbed also reference flat-footed/off-guard.

As does Prone, don't forget that one either.

Speaking of things like Prone and Grabbed, I don't know if the GM screen makes reference to monster abilities like Grab or Knockdown, but if it does you need to keep in mind that, as of the Remaster, those abilities require a check to perform.
Monsters just needed to spend an action to grapple/trip/shove someone previously, gaining an automatic success, but now require an Athletics check with no additional MAP to see such an ability go through.

Ultimately, I think Hei Feng would start some trouble if he realized but I would guess Ranginori might be more powerful. Ranginori probably wouldn't care much about both using the same title, and would probably find a way to peacefully resolve it.

It might be as simple as Ranginori saying, "Well you can be the Duke of Thunder, I'll be *blank*"

Or maybe a suggestion that Hei Fong adopt a different title (as Hei Fong is a Tian deity, a Chinese or Japanese noble title might make sense).

One stays Duke of Thunder, and the other becomes the Duke of Lightning. Which one that is is still to be determined, and it's the party who must now judge between the two deities to determine which has the more thunderous personality!

War of Immortals wrote:

As the war god died, his power rained through the many planes of creation, sparking conflict and instilling divine energy in those previously without it. Whether you were directly touched by this power, claimed it from an ancient being or artifact, or whether it awoke something long dormant in your lineage, a spark of the divine now blazes within your soul, granting you abilities, sacred weapons, and divine signifiers that reach into the realm previously reserved for gods and legends.

It's a bit vague, but "claimed it from an ancient being or artifact" and "awoke something long dormant in your lineage" certainly suggests that Exemplars can exist outside the context of the Godsrain if a mortal were to obtain a divine spark in some other way.

Yeah. Exemplar is the folkhero class, after all, and loads of folkheroes have ties to the divine one way or another.

I hope there is a blog or something to help spread the word of Starbuilder when it comes out. It's become such a useful tool.

maybe the ninja's thing could be playing into conditions like concealed, hidden, undetected, and unnoticed. Maybe they gain some baseline benefit as long as they are at least concealed and get more for being hidden, and something additional for being undetected or unnoticed.

I like this idea. Basically every class benefits from having those conditions, like how pretty much every class benefits from flanking an enemy, but comparatively few classes really need to be flanking all of the time. A hypothetical ninja feeding off of the Concealed and Hidden conditions could be cool. It also comes with a possible game play loop built in. Become Concealed/Hidden, do your thing, break your concealment, repeat.

My main concern is how it might slow play, needing to roll the extra flat checks, or if it might make a ninja overly durable as a dodge-tank, but I think it's an idea with possibilities at least.

I wonder if it's allowed to, like, have pizza or donuts delivered to the warehouse team or something. They're gonna be working their butts off these next couple weeks.

I hope so. I mean, not that they'll have to work their butts off (They need those butts!) but that there's going to be activity around warehouses and Paizo is able to keep shipping books. I'd heard physical prints of books were kind of up in the air with all the messiness around Diamond and the distribution channels Paizo uses.

There used to be a joke that ran around for a bit.

If the text is wordy and technical, it was written by Mark.
If the text assumed application of common sense, it was Logan.
if someone died then it was Jason who wrote it.

But Jason is such a kind and benevolent GM! He says so all the time; I mean, a PC almost dies after he says it, but I'm positive those are just unfortunate coincidences.

Claxon wrote:

I think there's certainly an argument that for INT we could make some skills (like any "knowledge" based skill) be either INT or whatever skill they currently are: So Arcana, Crafting, Lore, Medicine, Nature, Occultism, and Society could have an option to all use INT (and some are already INT based).

I think also allowing each character to choose to have will saves based on any mental score could help. Wisdom has enough going for it, that it can stand to lose Will saves and have them go to Int or Cha.

You make those kind of changes, with some sort of supplementary system for INT giving some extra skill proficiency increases and skill feats without completely supplanting skill niche classes (like the Investigator and Rogue) and you'll have a gone a long way at fixing INT.

This seems like a lot of work to make wisdom and intelligence relatively interachangable, to the point where I'd question why keep them as separate stats.

FromSoftware give each magic type a casting stat, but the number of spells you can prepare is governed by a memory stat for all characters. Theoretically you could use something similar in TTRPGs, but with the memory stat also counting towards lore and knowledge skills. Meanwhile, you could condense the casting power stats into a singular "will" stat which would also be used to resist mental effects.

I'm not sure that idea would hold up under close scrutiny, but it certainly would make sense that everyone needs some understanding to use magic and the focus to make it a reality.

This is kind of how Fantasy Age does things. You roll using intelligence when casting a spell to see if you "hit," meaning if you succeed in forming the spell or have to push through and spend more MP to cast it, while willpower determines a lot of spell parameters, number of targets or instances, overall potency, etc, as well as how many MP you have in the first place. I haven't gotten to play the system yet but their way of handling spellcasting looks good so far. I like the idea that multiple statistics contribute to casting spells just like multiple stats contribute to swinging weapons.

On the topic of the thread, I'm not sure what stat spread I'd favor. Right now the main thing I'd like is if perception got graduated up to a save. It already feels a lot like one, but occupies a liminal space between a save and a skill which is a bit odd. That'd likely mean moving will over to another stat, like charisma perhaps, to compensate.
I'd also be in favor of taking the better of two modifiers to determine saves, like I've seen a couple other games do.

I personally really like rules-light systems, and while I haven't looked at Daggerheart's rules in super-great depth, several of its elements look to throw lots of narrative prompts at the players, including in combat, in a manner that seems really fresh and interesting. I get that we're all more likely to have a preference for rules-heavy systems on these forums (I certainly do) and want to be protective of Pathfinder, but I don't think the two systems necessarily exist in tension with each other, let alone in competition. If this new system turns out to be good to use, I'd readily include it alongside 2e for players wanting a lighter bite of fantasy tabletop gaming. If it means those players become more open-minded to trying out different tabletop systems, or even that some of them end up wanting to sink their teeth into a more in-depth game like Pathfinder, all the better for us all.

This is what I'm hoping Daggerheart does. I'd love to see D&D supplanted from its monolithic position by a spectrum of a few very popular TTRPGs that run the gamut from very crunchy to more narrative.

I mean, obviously I'd love if each RPG out there had its time in the sun to drum up interest, but by and large people work off of patterns of association. It'll be easier to point at a different tactical TTRPG and say, "this is like Pathfinder 2E, but kinda not," or gesture to Daggerheart and say, "It's like this but X, Y, and Z are different."

The Social Purview feat from the Vigilante archetype has the Skill trait in the remaster, whereas it doesn't in the pre-remaster print.

Is it a typo? It isn't related to any skill.

That looks like a typo to me, yeah. Having the Skill trait means you could take it as a skill feat, and getting a dedication as a skill feat seems pretty gnarly.

Super excited by this blog! I'm especially glad to hear about technomancer. It sounds like there will be some other paths that don't rely so much on juggling spellshapes, which I'm glad to see. I'm hoping there will be a more and less complicated way for technos to play so folks can build one according to how much they want to engage with that complexity.

PF2E/SF2E skills follow a formula as well, which should help.

In their case the formula is 14 +(level)*1.3, with no rounding.

Perpdepog wrote:

I wonder if they'll mess around with spell components and how they interact with the psychic. Somatic, material, and verbal components aren't nearly as emphasized now.

They won't do anything with spell components because those don't exist anymore. (Aside from very rarely used costs or loci.) WotC got spell components in the divorce.

Sorry, I guess I didn't communicate clearly. I'm aware spell components aren't a thing anymore, outside of Manipulate and Concentrate actions; what I'm interested in is if the psychic will get anything new to indicate how differently they tend to cast as compared to other classes. I doubt it, but since I like subtle psychic I can hope.

I wonder if they'll mess around with spell components and how they interact with the psychic. Somatic, material, and verbal components aren't nearly as emphasized now.

I'm hoping they do something with the new Subtle trait as well. Psychics always felt like they'd be the sneakiest of casters to me, casting spells while walking down the street with their hands in their pockets and that.

I think he should be old, comparison to everyone else. So if you have everyone else like early twenties, yeah someone like Pedro Pascal playing Ezran works, especially with a running gag about how old he is and his response, "I'm only 42!"

We did exactly this gag with one of the PCs from my Tyrant's Grasp game. One of the players was a dwarven kineticist who had a bad accident requiring them to use a cane, and whose hair went prematurely white, and who had to keep yelling to everyone the assertion that, "I'm not old!"

It was a gag that ran through the entire campaign, and I can attest that it was never not funny.

The most direct comparison would be to another heal-over-time effect. Such as a Witch casting Life Boost on the target.

Also,

Quote:

One side argues that these are not duplicate effects because it's not a condition, bonus, penalty, or ability being applied to the wearer

where is that listed as the requirements for being considered a duplicate effect?

The rule says 'thing'.

Duplicate Effects wrote:

When you're affected by the same thing multiple times, only one instance applies

No restriction listed to those things being conditions, bonuses, penalties, or coming from abilities.

My thoughts: It looks like it qualifies as a duplicate effect to me. Yes the healing effect is coming from an item rather than a spell. That doesn't exempt the effect from the Duplicate Effects rule.

I also agree with Ascalaphus that this isn't the most high-stakes ruling to be worried about. A level 3 character casting a Rank 2 Lay on Hands is healing 12 points every 10 minutes. 10 spindles working together couldn't outperform that. And Lay on Hands isn't the best post-combat healing available.

Just wanted to point out that ten stones would outperform that; I think you mixed up the stones' healing rate of one minute for ten minutes. Each stone is granting 1 HP per minute, for a total of 10 HP every ten minutes. That's a total of 100 HP to the champion's 12.

Of course, by then characters can also gain Incredible Investiture to equip more stones, which would push the breakpoint in favor of the champion up to level 13, where they could do 126 HP of healing per ten minutes.

I'm not sure why I devoted time to figuring this out. I'm also in the camp that it's really not that big a deal, and other healing options are generally much more efficient. It is funny imagining someone foregoing magical armor or any other form of protection to be surrounded by a cloud of pretty rocks, though.

Waldham wrote:

Is it possible to use a Collar of the Shifting Spider with a juggernaut mutagen on a bonded animal ? Other alchemical items also ?

A Collar of the Shifting Spider requires a manipulate free action to activate, which the bonded animal can't perform.

The bonded animal isn't an animal companion, so there aren't rules restrictions on feeding it elixirs as long as you can convince the bonded animal to accept them. Anyone who has had to give a dog medicine will be aware that this is probably going to require a more difficult check than a basic command, but Bonded Animal does mean they're helpful, improving the degree of success by one.

And we have, unfortunately, yet to see stats for peanut butter in PF2E.

I'm in agreement with others pointing out that I'd kind of expect to get wrecked by a dragon if I tried to fight it in the open and didn't prep for its speed. That's part of the narrative of sneaking into the dragon's lair in the first place. I'm also in agreement that hit-and-run does strip away a lot of its best abilities; honestly hit-and-run would be more concern to me because it would stretch a fight out and make it a slog, rather than having me be worried about a TPK.
And on the GM side, why would I want the party to have a knock-down, drag-out showdown with a dragon in a wide open space? That just sounds really un-fun for the party. Ditto for having the dragon played to kill them or whatever. At that point it feels more like the GM is out to get the players than the monster is.
I'd much rather create a running battle with the dragon using the chase rules or some other victory point subsystem to simulate the party either fleeing to come back later, or luring the dragon to a more advantageous location to fight them in.

What the Bestiary/Monster Core maybe don't spell out totally explicitly, but is pretty obvious if you're paying attention: not all monsters have the same amount of "story power".

A big bear is still just a simple animal. You run into it and fight it, or maybe run away or have your druid talk it down. But it's usually not going to go "out of the box" in which you encounter it.

A vampire that can dominate people, turn to mist and recuperate in a well-hidden coffin, fly, create a horde of minions to zerg rush the PCs: that's different. Yeah, sometimes you really do encounter a vampire that's just... there, and you find it's coffin in the next room and put an end to it. But that does feel like it's doing a disservice to the whole idea of the monster.

Same with dragons, liches, wizards and so on. They're good as high-plot enemies.

I like this phrase "high-plot." It's a nice axis to set perpendicular to level.

It wouldn't close the gap, but it might be kinda neat to harken back to premaster cantrips with a psychic-specific ability to let them add their KAS to the damage they deal. It'd be like a much bumpier Sorcerous Potency, starting off considerably higher, when cantrips are going to be of utmost importance, and level out as the game goes on.

I do hope we get some buffs and QoL changes to psychic. I keep looking at it, because I like the class fantasy a lot, but then shy away because it always looks just a smidge too clunky for me to feel comfortable piloting it.

I'd really like to see a symbiend-focused archetype show up, sort of a half-way point of the artifact archetypes that exist in PF2E.

Ryangwy wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

I'm not complaining about the elemental blast damage. It's a little low IMO and could use more enhancement through the gate attenuator but as you stated it's a third action.

Basically, you want some higher level two or three action single target impulses similar to e.g. Execute?

I do see the appeal, though given the constantly available nature of impulses I also can see the worry that it'd end up like Starlight Span, where the best thing to do is get in range and just keep blasting. AoEs generally require some amount of movement and rethinking to keep extracting maximum value out of them, at least.

Yep. More tools for different jobs. Even more debuff, attack single target would probably help. You don't want to be dropping solar detonation or ignite the sun on a single target. It seems like overkill and is unwieldy.

I kinda like that unwieldiness, honestly. I for sure wouldn't be disappointed if we got more precise, single target impulses, but I like the narrative of the kineticist forcing their gate wider and wider for more dramatic effects, and those effects being more splashy and destructive than precise and controlled. It works with the flavor of how gates work, and them using Con as their key stat, to really sell the fantasy for me.

NoxiousMiasma wrote:

[snip]

As for the possessed doll, PC ancestries are generally really stingy with expanded movement types in 2e - look at how flying feats work! And considering that sort of mobility is generally gated behind level 8 for PC options, it seems a bit high-budget for a heritage. Would make perfect sense as an ancestry feat though.

This is a fair point, and I could see it as a level 5 feat with the prerequisite of Possessed Doll heritage, since Awakened Animals already get full Flight at 9th level. Glide is also comparable, and it's a level 5 feat of other ancestries (Iruxi, Grippli, Leshy). I just don't know what the heritage should give that is iconic of the concept.

A bonus against Emotion and Possession effects, immunity from the Possession trait (as it's so vanishingly narrow and rare), or resistance to Void or Mental damage would be where I'd start building such a heritage.

Stepping into the Doylist perspective for a moment, it WOULD be kind of cool if Paizo decided to shake up not just their status quo, but the fantasy RPG status quo in general by having Asmodeus dethroned in their version of Hell as a way of making it more distinct from its predecessor (which is so entrenched in the RPG-playing public's consciousness that people STILL call it "the Nine Hells" when playing Pathfinder even though that hasn't been the case in the actual text for YEARS)!

You're referring specifically to the name "The Nine Hells," right? Not the actual number of distinct zones? Just double checking that I didn't miss some shakeup to the layout of Hell in PF's cosmology, somehow.

Well, you can check out Pathwarden on itch.io if you want a look at what a classless PF2e could be.

It's pretty good actually...

It's on Drivethrough RPG now, too, looks like. Thanks for the mention; I'll check this out!

I would really like to see some more impulses, especially utility ones or ones that affect downtime.

I'd really like downtime impulses, though I think I'd rather see them formatted as something like a ritual that a kineticist can learn rather than as a feat they have to take. Format it really similarly, but with few to no secondary casters, and with a kineticist able to use their blast DC for the primary check to gage their success. Downtime options are necessarily pretty limited, and I'm not sure that's worth a class feat, even with the ease of reflowing, but making those abilities into rewards or options kineticists can pick up would help give them something special to differentiate them from casters more.

What is subplanar?

I've been wondering that too. It could just be simple word choice, but it sounds like sub-planar refers to a boundary space to judge from the blog.

I'm not sure why The Fray isn't simply referred to as its own plane though. Perhaps we'll start seeing sub-planar spaces between all the elemental planes too?

I really don't get why "Kineticists should get more impulses" is a hot take.

I mean do we object every time a new spell is added to the game?

I would love to see more non-combat impulses. Things to help with exploration or roleplay or down time. Like maybe introduce a subset of impulses that either have alternate effects if done as part of down time, or only work during down time, things like summoning useable/valuable amounts of ore (letting you role your Impulse attack as for an earn income check) or revitalize natural places, or grant protection from undeath by cremating in sacred fire, purifying tainted water sources.

It's not. It's also not the part of the thread people are responding to. Everybody seems in agreement that more impulses, as a general idea, is both cool and good. The argument isn't just that kineticist needs more impulses, however, but that going mono-element is bad, and there need to be impulses that broaden each element so they can be more of an all-rounder. I'm also seeing discussion surrounding damage output as well.

I really like the contrast between these two new iconics. Ulka's motivations are really complicated and confusing, possibly even to herself, while Grimmyr's motivations couldn't really be simpler. A very cool pair!

I also love how our big blue boy decided to tie a bunch of weapons to his weapon to make it more weapon and scare people away from messing with him. Also, you never know. Tying hammers to hammers might give you more HAMMER.

...give me- okay, for metal, I mostly want an impulse that can make an enemy count as wearing metal armor.

This gave me a mental image of an impulse that literally wraps a creature in metal, similar to Metal Carapace, and now I want that to be a thing.

I'm down with two-action magus focus spells that can be bigger and flashier. Personally speaking, the big reason I feel like needing to spellstrike as much as I can is because spellstriking is flashy and cool, and magus is kind of the flashy and cool big attack guy.
Having other options to let you do big, flashy moves that aren't spellstriking, and could recharge your spellstrike or give you some other benefit, would be pure awesome.

I believe Team+ put a CHA based magus in their Magus+ book that might be worth your investigation.

They did. I believe it's called Essence Mystic. I skimmed it before but don't really remember how it worked unfortunately.

I'm kind of the opposite, funnily enough. Thief rogue irks me, mostly because I'm not a big fan of Dex-to-damage as a class feature, and I don't see how it equates to being a thief.
So not really a "worst" class in terms of performing badly, more "worst" in that I don't quite get the narrative or implementation.
Rogues also break the usual formula for how saves progress and that niggles at my brain more than it should, which doesn't help.

I can't imagine that Wildsong not existing would be a reason to ban the druid class. For one thing, how often has anyone even spoken Wildsong in their games? That's a genuine question, because it's happened in my games a grand total of zero times. I've always seen the language as more of a flavor ribbon than anything else.

There's also the fact that classes aren't really diegetic in the setting, at least not normally. Someone could have the cleric class, for example, but be referred to as a priest, rabbi, friar, magus, or whatever religious title you'd care to use. Same goes for the other classes, like druid. I'm sure someone can practice prepared primal magic but not consider themselves a druid, even if they do many of the same things.

I hope that Szuriel or other daemonic agents turn out to be involved, somehow. Not for any compelling lore reason, I'd just like to see more daemonic influence on the storytelling; they tend to play second fiddle to demons and devils.

John R. wrote:

I have no idea if there is any 3rd party material that would cover this but reflavoring the necromancer (only released as playtest currently) would probably do the trick.

I've seen bits and pieces of it. If I'm not mistaken, it works on the new thrall mechanic, summoning and sacrificing them to do a multitude of things. I could definitely work, I would just be hard pressed to figure out an explanation for them all being undead.

The spiritual leader of a now-destroyed goblin tribe, summoning the spirits of their former tribemates to get revenge on the longshanks, or whoever else, killed them all, maybe?

I think it should? See the Unseen and Truesight both have the Revelation trait, so it seems RAW that you'd be allowed a counteract check when somebody looks at you, and you have Hidden Mind active.

Dragonchess Player wrote:

plus some of the playtest classes are a bit meh compared to PF2 classes in similar roles (solarian vs. kineticist for instance).

I think this is kind of par for the course for playtest classes in this system. A lot of the PF2 classes have been significantly weaker in their playtest incarnations than their eventual release status was. Like the playtest kineticist had very little use for their KAS, and the playtest guardian was probably the worst class I've seen except for one incredibly overpowered feat that defined whole builds.

I guess it makes sense for the playtest version to be "underbaked" as it were.

IIRC, it's a psychology thing. The final class gets received more favorably if the playtest class was a bit undertuned, because the memory of that playtest class gets used as a comparison point. The perception becomes that you're getting more out of the class. The opposing scenario would be that a class comes out super powerful and then gets nerfed in the final release, which has the knock-on effect of making people feel like the cool stuff they are meant to be getting is being taken away from them.

Woot! Super excited for this release.

Yeah, missing Shirren. And the caption for the third image invites us to play “countless hours of adventure with tarfinder Player Core!” which I think should be Starfinder unless there’s a new oil-mining spinoff game XD

I caught that too, lol.

Also, I'd play it.

keftiu wrote:

I'm really hoping we see a Numerian [something] that gives a good excuse to rope in some SF2 stuff.

Likewise! I’m trying to figure out how to bring some high level tech into my home game, but the Isle of Kortos doesn’t have any good options that fit within Golarion lore for that kind of crossover.

How about some leftover ruins from a technologically sophisticated enemy who tried laying siege to Absalom in order to lay claim to the Starstone?

I'm with TRB; I think spells like Blindness or Blur will be winners for you. I can't think of many more buffs in terms of accuracy off the top of my head. Heroism will eventually give you some more breathing room, action-wise, than Fortissimo does, but that's not until level 17. I think it'd be more effective to start looking at buffs that help your barb keep swinging longer and suffer less damage overall, so they can keep critting down enemies like the Universe's angriest lawnmower.

Also, a bit off-topic, but something about the framing of this thread makes me smile and I'm not sure why.

Easl wrote:

But it does bring up the humorous thought. Party is outside bossmonster's door, the bard fervently casting all their 1-minute duration buffs. Then in a 'round 0' flash the fighter slams open the door while the bard casts Tempest of Shades so that the first round of actual combat they can combo that with their 1A aid + 1A composition + 1A True Target, and the party finds...a note. "Spellcasting is loud. I heard you. Be back in 90 seconds when you're completely out of mojo."

Frankly, the whole thing sounds a bit like one of Ravingdork's hypotheticals.

Some people do play that way, even some here. I doubt many players would appreciate such a prank as that note, heh.

If it were to be something I'd do, I'd only ever do it once, and even then not for a super important fight. IMO the point of those kinds of jokes is to gently remind the party that the world is alive and will sometimes respond to cheesy tactics they employ with cheesy tactics of their own, not to punish them for being organized and prepared for danger.

I was already on board to play SF2E before it got announced, and yeah, I do think it's largely because of the PF2E engine being used. I played some SF1E, and it was fun, but I'm way more interested in the two games being broadly cross compatible so I can mix and match, or not, as I feel like. I suspect that, if I do get to play, it'll be on the GM's side, as I think I am the person in my group most interested in science fantasy who is also most familiar with the system. I'm also super looking forward to eventually getting to play though, because Galaxy Guide put out so many of the ancestries I like already.

I have played SF1e, I even enjoyed it, but it was very much in spite of the system rather than because of it (I really really dislike the 3.5-style actions - too many to keep track of). As I'm much fonder of the PF2e-style three actions, my hope is that SF2e will be much more fun, as I won't have to spend half my time wrestling the system.

(unfortunately it doesn't look like I'll be able to convert my absolute favourite 1e character, Ketchiketchim the Skittermander Pokemon trainer, just yet...)

In case someone hasn't suggested it to you before, have you considered checking out Roll for Combat's Eldemon supplement? It comes with a trainer class and I wanna say forty-odd evolutionary families of critters.

I had this issue with 5E not too long ago, but regarding creatures with much less context available outside their monster entries. Paizo generally expands on their material in ways closer to 2E D&D (my highest compliment), but you do have to know where to find it. I'm hopeful that we'll get some Fiendish Codex kinds of books like the upcoming Dragon book for those creatures that are less region-specific.

I would be over the moon for a 2E rendition of The Book of the Damned with sections devoted to each kind of fiend. Loved that book, and the format for the monster-centric books in 2E is even better organized IMO.