Perpdepog's page

What do you mean by an operative "with 3.5 rules?" Starfinder 1E doesn't really run on 3.5/PF1E rules, though it's close-ish, and SF2E doesn't run on the same rules at all.

Just popping in to remind everyone that, according to encounter guidelines, a fight against eight lesser deaths is considered a moderate threat encounter for a party of four level 20 PCs.

Or, heck, for twenty more ExP in the budget you could substitute out four of those lesser deaths for the Grim Reaper himself, and still not quite reach the budget for a standard severe encounter.

I’m no longer able to download the “Head Shot The Rot” pregens from the product page. Can someone please remind me if this moved somewhere else - thanks!

Have you checked the "My Downloads" page? It's accessible from your account screen, near the bottom.

Though I believe you now need to go to "Shop Pathfinder" at the top of just about any page, sign in, click "Your Account," and from there click "Library." That should get you to a page where you can download anything you've purchased.

Couldn't they also throw holy water?

Combat also doesn't have to mean getting the other team all down to 0 hp. From recent PFS examples:

I get lucky with a crit and one-shot the boss of a group of thugs in the first round of combat after saying stylish*, thugs all give up.

Encounter with a un underground room full of cultists with a narrow entrance, and I have Igneogenesis and immediately wall them in, cultists all give up.

Room with a few sleeping guards, and I'm a sneaky character with manacles; I cuff them to their beds and skip the combat part entirely.

Easy combats are perfect opportunities for a little improv.

* I pointed with a finger gun, said "Bang", and cast Needle Darts, and down they went. :3

I think the first point is especially important to keep in mind, both for building verisimilitude and for fine-tuning combats even more.

Sometimes, I throw a formerly difficult monster, which had been Level+2 on the first encounter, at the party after they have leveled up so that the monster is Level-1. This is to show them how much they have improved.

I love doing this. It tends to go over pretty well, especially if said monster has some trick or ability that made them very difficult to deal with originally, or if there are enough of those monsters to still make a moderate threat encounter, but each individual monster goes down much easier.

Construct Compendium, name subject to change, a book all about the various kinds of construct and construct-like traditions throughout Golarion. Options for a couple more construct ancestries, such as updating poppets to the Remaster, the re-introduction of some PF1E options like wyrwoods, and maybe one or two new options such as playing a sapient animated armor, statue, clockwork, or maybe robot, though I think we'll likely see sapient robots in SF2E.
A chapter or two about different crafting and construct-building traditions, ranging from discussions of different approaches to clockwork construction, to discussions of anaimated objects, to a broader discussion of the guardian and sentinel-type constructs that used to be golems, to constructs that are related to various religious practices, such as the remastered golem. These sections would be peppered throughout with player-facing options such as a remastering of the Golem Grafter archetype along with other Premaster construct-themed archetypes, as well as a few new options such as a class archetype, likely with the inventor or alchemist, that trades away more of their kit to have a more highly modular construct companion ... though as I type that this may be edging into the mechanic's territory. (Eh, no matter, this is a hypothetical.) I'd also like to include some construct-themed spells, as well, along with rituals that let you build constructs and modify them akin to the construct-building rules from PF1E.
Then the last section would be the expected bestiary, which would update more old constructs from the Premaster and PF1E into the Remaster, along with introducing a couple new construct types and families. Not sure what those would be at the moment, though one idea I'd like to see would be multiple, smaller constructs that combine together into a higher-level threat, or constructs made of highly unusual materials, like a construct made of solidified magical essence of a specific type or the like.

Your assumption is correct. I suspect that might even be what the 1+half level formula is for, so that you have some resistance even at very low level.

My favorite so far remains, "Rattlesnakes of the Runelords."

"This runewell ain't big enough for the both of us."--Runelord Karzoug to soon-to-be Ex-Runelord Haphrama

Skhayman wrote:

I'm looking for someone from Paizo who can answer my questions about systems. For example: is it possible to exceed the 10d6 fireball maximum with the Arcanist's Potent Magic exploit?

No. The exploit increases your caster level, but that won't change the spell's cap on damage dice. The exploit would actually have to say it did something like that, instead of just, "Whenever the arcanist expends one point from her arcane reservoir to increase the caster level of a spell, the caster level increases by 2 instead of 1."

I believe you need something like the Intensify Spell metamagic if you want to exceed the limits on CL bumps to spells.

Trip.H wrote:

Due to RP / story reasons, I have had my PCs keep going while Drained, and that genuinely adds some tension /drama to the proceedings.

But, that's typically imposed by monsters, and not hazards, lol.

(...)

Yeah like you said, Drained does that, Doomed does as well, but many conditions are about encounter-sized, like Sickened. Or HP damage really.

Something I've seen a few times in PFS scenarios is a "if you fail this part of the skill challenge, you're Sickened and you can't try to reduce it until the next combat has started". Although a bit artificial, it did work reasonably well.

I think that's the mechanical niche that hazards need to fill, yeah. It's too easy to negate HP damage without expending resources because encounters are meant to be fairly self-contained. Debuffing the team works better.

I'd have said I was okay with the Runelords being over a decade ago, except Paizo has a way of crafting relevant stories that rejuvenate that bunch. And there's a lot of Thassilonian/Azlanti potential to explore where it'd be odd not to have Runelords make an appearance (albeit maybe not as primary enemies).

Honestly some stories about their underlings coming out of stasis and wanting to fill the power vacuum left by the defeated Runelords, and using their greater knowledge of where caches of materials and weapons might be would make a fun framework for an adventure.

Unicore wrote:

It is about as classical a fantasy trope as there can be that you bring a rogue to a dungeon to find traps and secret treasures. Without proficiency gating it takes a while for a rogue’s perception to be better than a wisdom caster. Clerics don’t need to be the trap finders.

And rogues don't need to be better than clerics or animists at detecting haunts, but that ship has sailed. Perception scaling should never have been class based in the first place.

Perpdepog wrote:

Are there any haunts that are perception-gated? That feels real weird just, conceptually.

Not sure if rhetorical or not, but yes, many are gated.

It wasn't rhetorical. I was genuinely asking, thanks.

Are there any haunts that are perception-gated? That feels real weird just, conceptually.

I can understand a trap being gated behind perception proficiency, even if I'm also not a fan. Traps are meant to be hidden; an obvious trap isn't much of a trap.

Haunts, in contrast, are practically the opposite. Haunts come from spirits or some other presence who is upset and making that upset manifest for some reason. They want to announce themselves. Making it hard to spot a haunt feels like it's going against the spirit, her-der, of the hazard, IMO.

IIRC the swords of sin are bound to make an appearance in the future.

It was mentioned as one reason why they were not in Revenge.

Oh, nice! I've got a real weakness for sapient and/or cursed swords, and have been waiting for the Alara'hai to show up, and more importantly get stats, ever since PF2E was a thing.

And Razmir's replacement might in most ways be Razmir. I could see him embedding himself within an artifact or possessing others. Or even already usurped by a council, making Razmir a broader entity (or even a puppet). With all the lies, there are many ways to explore this, the toughest part being the author treading around tropes (as best one can) so as to avoid predictability. This might require flexibility so GMs can tailor the answer in the opposite direction of where players/PCs think the conspiracy suggest. Hmm.

Some of these possibilities could explain why Tar-Baphon has reached out to Razmir. If he's actually possessing people then he's most of the way to lichdom or some other form of undeath already. I could see such a state of affairs prompting TB to try to convince him to get on side or, failing that, use his mythic necromantic abilities to outright control him.

A 2E rendition of something like Artifacts and Legends, something in the same vein as Monsters of Myth, but for items.

I'd also want it to emphasize the legends part, because I love lore on magic items a lot, and it'd also present an excuse to stat up artifacts and similarly powerful items that may no longer exist, or may no longer exist in the same form as they used to.

Regarding points #1-3;

I agree in principle that this is bad, but I think in practice it can be not so bad but it really depends on how long it all takes. If a trap takes longer to resolve than it's interesting, it starts to drag. But if it's somewhat interesting and doesn't take long to resolve, then it's fine.

I guess that biases me a bit in the direction of simple hazards over complex ones. Or treating complex ones as simple ones as soon as the party finds a solution, like "let's step back out of the area and wait it out".

For example: yesterday the party walked into a room with some dead centipedes curled like kittens around balls of wire. Looks suspicious. One PC fired a kinetic blast at one of them to see what would happen. Trap goes off and starts hurting everyone in 30 feet. The party quickly steps back out of range. At that point I just stopped initiative because the trap was "solved". Because it didn't take long to resolve, the "interesting" still ended up as a net positive and it helped set the tone a bit for the area the party was exploring.

I've experienced something similar with skill challenges like chases, where really the depth of player tactical choices isn't all that deep. If you make people think for a long time about the 100% optimal choices of who makes a skill check next, then it really drags. If you just push push push people to quickly roll something because you're in a hurry, then the entire chase only takes like 10m to resolve at the table but it's entertaining.

This is how I try to run hazards as well. I'm not always successful at it, there is a particular hazard in Night of the Gray Death that really ground our game to halt because I wasn't sure how to run it, but these days I try to lean more to treating hazards sans monsters as simple over complex, or maybe play it all out in narrative with the party telling me what they want to do.

I haven't really experimented with time pressure; maybe I should. That might make them a bit more exciting. On the other hand, I've found that my party tend to feel kinda good when they "solve" a hazard and bypass it, too. It makes them feel clever and like their characters are competent, which is also nice to have happen in your games sometimes.

It's tricky because I think your standard hazard/trap room is innately ill-suited to PF2E. In fiction traps primarily exist to raise stakes; the main character is running from a boulder, or falling into a pit, and it's exciting seeing them get out of it because you know they'll get out of it and want to see what it may cost them. That doesn't really work as well in tabletop games because, well sometimes the dice can screw you. That means that you can fail a trap due to a bad roll and potentially lose a character, which really doesn't feel good, especially in games that have such deep and time-consuming customization as PF2E does.
Conversely, making traps deal some damage to the party, as many do, isn't especially satisfying either. PF2E approaches combats as puzzles and expects the party to be reasonably full health when approaching them, meaning it's easier to heal up out of combat. That solves the problem of a character dying in an anticlimactic and unsatisfying way, but trivializes most hazards, making you wonder why you'd bother.
Normally the solution to this issue would be to have your hazards work like Teridax said, making the dungeon harder to complete either by making the challenges harder, or by impairing the party so that they are incentivized to look for and solve the hazards rather than tripping them. Resource attricion seems to be what many games settle on hazards being. I'm not sure that really works either though, mostly because many afflictions are built in such a way that they'll last for one combat rather than for a long period of time, like in the prior edition.

E.G wrote:

Do we know page count?

I think we mentioned that in the stream, but maybe not? In any case, it's 8 pages longer than the norm for a hardcover Adventure Path at 264 pages, if I recall correctly.

That's pretty beefy! I was figuring they'd be closer to 200-ish pages; roughly three times the size of the individual AP volumes.

A PF2E version of Distant Worlds would be pretty great.

Perpdepog wrote:

Mangaholic13 wrote:

Perpdepog wrote:

Zoken44 wrote:

I can't wait for more dragons.

Like a Cyberdragon (Arcane) a dragon that chose to have it's conciousness and soul digitized and put into a machine body. with an electric breath.

A mutant Dragon, (primal) who's breath weapon is EITHER Poison, Acid, Fire, or Piercing, which is determined every time the breath weapon is recharged.

On the subject of the cyberdragon, I hope we see the return of the robotic dragons; those were fun.

Well, Galactic Ancestries will have rules for making any ancestry a robot, so you'll be able to be a robot dragonet and dragonkin.

The true test will be whether you can mount a giant freaking laser on your head or not; that was the robotic dragon's shtick. Dunno why, but I loved having there be dragons with guns for faces.

Yugioh fan, I take it?

I do enjoy my coin-flipping decks, yee.

Didn't Season of Ghosts come out after the Remaster? I suspect you're right, but I wanna hold on to my hope that BotD will get the remastering treatment.

Perpdepog wrote:

Zoken44 wrote:

I can't wait for more dragons.

Like a Cyberdragon (Arcane) a dragon that chose to have it's conciousness and soul digitized and put into a machine body. with an electric breath.

A mutant Dragon, (primal) who's breath weapon is EITHER Poison, Acid, Fire, or Piercing, which is determined every time the breath weapon is recharged.

On the subject of the cyberdragon, I hope we see the return of the robotic dragons; those were fun.

Well, Galactic Ancestries will have rules for making any ancestry a robot, so you'll be able to be a robot dragonet and dragonkin.

The true test will be whether you can mount a giant freaking laser on your head or not; that was the robotic dragon's shtick. Dunno why, but I loved having there be dragons with guns for faces.

Gaulin wrote:

Another paizo live come and gone, no impossible book announcement. Adventures look neat at least.

Impossible wait continues. The final hint last night said next live would talk about two remastered products and one new one, so my copium is that it'll be the next one. Curious what was meant by "two remastered products": the whole of Secrets of Magic and Book of the Dead or those classes and some of those archetypes rolling into the impossible book?

I'd love a remastering of Book of the Dead. Skeleton needs a way to gain the advanced undead benefits, and I wouldn't mind seeing the other undead archetypes get a bit of a push, particularly Lich and Vampire. (I like them well enough as is, but I wouldn't say no to some tweaking, either.)

Something else I just realized I'd like to see if I could make anything, an edition-updated, remastered version of Tabrus' works.

Chronicle of the Righteous, Concordance of Rivals, and of course, Book of the Damned.

1) A book about how to create a more modern version setting for Pathfinder (like a version of d20 Modern), allowing you to run Urban Fantasy style campaigns (like Earthbound, Dresden Files, Like A Dragon, Persona, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Dimension20's Fantasy High). Something to act as an in-between for Pathfinder and Starfinder.

I stan for Streetfinder.

I've got two things.

1. I'm not sure of the "X of the Y" naming scheme it'd have yet, but a book all about aberrations and the spookier, more cosmic horror-coded parts of Golarion's setting. I'm thinking divided into a few broad sections which talk about various aberrant threats and location themes; deep under the water, the Darklands, among the stars, dreams, other dimensions, etc. Each section would talk about some of the major factions that are part of that location like the Dominion of the Black out in space, and each section would have some player options linked to that setting. These would be a mix of archetypes to let players take the power of aberrations, like being a mind-swapper taught by Yithians, to aberration and weird ancestries, to archetypes that also let you become an aberration, like becoming a swarm strider. Then there would be a bestiary in the back full of various threats, some of them mythic like a Great Old One or two.

And my other option would be,

2. A six-part Adventure Path that sees a party traveling through all six of the elemental planes, I'm thinking on some kind of grand mystery. I'm not sure what yet, but it's felt like such a missed opportunity to not link that format to one-plane-per-book since we got the Plane of Metal and Plane of Wood.

But quite a few will find a way to rationalize the contradictions because they want to believe it. Anything that gets in the way of that can be rationalized away, dismissed, ignored, or just lived with despite the contradictions.

Cognitive Dissonance is incredibly powerful. Just look at reality right now for endless examples.

This is especially true for the Razmiri, who have been living in a stew of Razmir-facing propaganda and misinformation for their entire lives. It's going to be really, really hard, even for the Razmiran priesthood, to convince them that their god isn't really a god and their faith is entirely a sham. At that point you're effectively trying to displace someone's entire identity--Razmir is a theocracy, remember--and that's hard going at the best of times.

That may honestly be the reason the upper echelons of the priesthood are trusted with those secrets. Loyalty and usefulness are undoubtedly part of it, but anyone who gets that high in the organization will have been observed for a long time, and the Razmiri are, if nothing else, observant and good at social engineering.

Is it me or do the DCs for Discovery and Influence feel very high, even on the lower end? My party are level 12, which I believe they're supposed to be, and they're having a difficult time making checks ,even aiding each other.

I mean, in the real world there are an unsettling number of people who believe in the divine mission of politicians who don't even profess divine provenance, so I'd believe that this sort of thing happens all the time in Razmiran.

There are assuredly some grifters in the bunch, but it's not 100%.

And even among those grifters it's possible there are true believers who think perpetuating their grift is in service to Razmir and the faith. It's totally possible for the things a priest says, does, and believes to all be totally at odds, and for them to see nothing wrong with that.

Belief in Razmir himself is a bit trickier, but not by much. History is littered with figures who claimed, or were claimed, to be divine, and I doubt all of their closest followers fully bought into that mythos.

It also sounds like different staves will be capable of doing different damage types based on what spells are in the staff, which means that a staff will be dealing more exotic damage types than an air repeater does. That's not a huge benefit, it effectively turns staves into d4 sparkguns that don't need reloading, but it's also not nothing.

I'm also not sure how important Agile is to a caster anymore, given how many spell attack spells have migrated over to being save DCs.

The eidolon sharing skill proficiencies with the summoner essentially grants advantage on all Recall Knowledge checks, which is neat. We had a running joke every time the beast eidolon succeeded at a knowledge check everyone else in the party failed at.

I eventually switched over from rolling RK checks twice to having my eidolon Aid on all my summoner's checks once I got to higher levels. The bump in proficiency made the critical effect worth going for after a while, and that's even more true now with the Aid DC being lower.

Do we have a definite date for Tech Core yet? It could have been pushed back to make room for the playtest.

JiCi wrote:

Don't wizards in the Harry Potter universe fire simple quick blasts with their wands?

That sounds similar, but with a staff.

Actually, from what I remember, they are always using their wands to cast what are considered full on spells in that setting.

The Gandalf/Saruman slugfest with staves from the movies might be a closer example from media.

In WoW classic some classes would auto-attack with a wand doing chip damage when they were out of mana, which is probably the closest flavor to what I'm proposing.

I tend to think of the wizard from Gauntlet, myself.

Also, responding to an idea upthread, I'm personally not a fan of both making a staff's attacks work like casting a spell and also making runes apply to those attacks; that feels like it's stepping on the toes of martial classes. I would definitely apply runes to the staff's attacks if the attacks keyed off Dex, however, or even if they worked like normal weapon attacks but used the casting stat to hit.

I'm not sure that I agree that 10th rank spells are the determining factor for being an archmage.

For example, (and I'm not sure if there is new better information) but the High Sun-Mage of Magaambya, Oyamba, is only a 13th level wizard (and a 15th level character) according to Pathfinderwiki.

Unfortunately I don't have an easy way to look at all published caster NPCs, their levels, and their roles within the narrative.

I do agree that being "a high level caster" is important to being an archmage, but not necessarily being a 20th level caster.

At any given time there's probably less than ten 20th level characters on Golarion.

That's fair and makes sense to me. I was looking at a more global view, imagining that there'd be a "there can be only one" situation, but that's far from necessary. I do definitely agree that someone should be reasonably high level to be considered as well; it's hard to imagine someone being a level 2 or 3 archmage.

Had I asked for a squire instead of a knight, I doubt anyone would confuse the two or have any issues making different builds for each character concept.

Firstly, when did I confuse an archmage with anything else? Secondly, if you are comparing a squire and knight, then what are you comparing an archmage with to make this analogy?

Is the squire vs knight not also a matter of degree of skill?[/quote[

Yes, it is, which is why I'm confused that you're using squires and knights to prop up your argument. I agree their builds would be different, and that difference would be of degree; that's what I'm saying. Knights would have skills squires possess, being former squires, but would also have abilities that squires do not. What's more, they need to be widely recognized to be knights, just as the archmages in my post would need to be recognized as such. Knights are, in effect, more combat-capable, meaning higher-level, squires who are officially recognized for that accomplishment.

I assume they'll eventually get around to a secrets of magic remaster. Summoner is fairly strong as is. Some of the initial eidolon abilities are pretty boring though. I'd also like to see more stat spreads for the eidolons or even the ability to just choose the stats ourselves. Not sure why it has to be just one of 2 builds.

I think it's some kind of future-proofing; there was a fair amount of optimizing you could do with eidolons in PF1E regarding stats, especially notable with the synthesist.

I wouldn't be surprised if it took up less page space to give pre-defined stat lineups as opposed to needing to write out the system, as well, though I think there should be ways to make a system like that fairly compact.

Ravingdork wrote:

Zoken44 wrote:

I would want an Archmage to be able to do things outside of their tradition's normal wheel house.

Well why don't we pull on that thread, shall we?

How might your wizard break with tradition or otherwise expand their abilities beyond those normally expected of wizards in order to claim the title of archmage?

I also quite like the idea of narrowing the focus based on campaign themes, such as the Magaambya and the Runelords mentioned by Captain Morgan. How might archmages from different cultures or organizations differ from one another?

I don't think (generally) being an archmage means breaking from expectations of wizards. Rather it means being a master of magic. The prefix "arch" denotes leadership. It doesn't necessarily mean being the strongest. And it doesn't have anything to do with doing things other mages wouldn't, not necessarily.

A Magaambyan wizard would be expected to use both arcane and primal magic. But I wouldn't say that it makes all practitioners archmagi.

Rather than examine how "archmages" of different cultures are different, examine what is the same between them. That is the essence of an archmage.

I also tend to see an archmage as a matter of degree, not kind--it's hard to be "arch" if you can't cast 10th-rank spells, for example, thus disqualifying any mage below 19th level--but if I had to choose something that an archmage could do, it'd be this. Futzing with magic, tinkering and freely messing about with spells, creating all-new spells, essentially being the best with magic is how I imagine an archmage to act.

I think that's the other issue I have with questions like "how would you go about building an archmage?" I don't really see archmage-dom as something that you are, but more as something you do. An archmage is an archmage because they keep out-maging other mages and somehow acquire consensus from their peers and inferiors that they are the most mage there is. Their unique talents may help contribute to that, but there isn't really an ability or focus that says "you are an archmage if you have this ability" to me, aside from needing to be able to cast 10th-rank spells as a prerequisite to even being considered for the title.

I can't wait for more dragons.

Like a Cyberdragon (Arcane) a dragon that chose to have it's conciousness and soul digitized and put into a machine body. with an electric breath.

A mutant Dragon, (primal) who's breath weapon is EITHER Poison, Acid, Fire, or Piercing, which is determined every time the breath weapon is recharged.

On the subject of the cyberdragon, I hope we see the return of the robotic dragons; those were fun.

I think the playtests got thrown a bit out of sync by starfinder playtests, so it might be a while.

Weren't the Battlecry, Impossible, and Starfinder 2E playtests also fairly close together as playtests go? Or maybe I'm thinking of Tech Core rather than Battlecry.

What about adding the casting stat to damage, akin to how cantrips used to work in the before times?

James Jacobs wrote:

We decide all those things on a case by case basis.

If you don't mind me asking James, what was the decision made on some of the Archdevils? Can Asmodeus and Dispater still be used?

Asmodeus is in Player Core, and Dispater, along with the other Archdevils, are in Divine Mysteries, so no fear there.

I was picturing using Dex, because it's filling the role of an Air Repeater without the thematic clash. I'd be a bit worried about it being too no-brainer if it used their spellcasting attack.

For damage type, I was thinking it would be a best-fit to the staff theme, with maybe fire as a default fallback.

That sounds good to me. I see your point about not wanting it to be too no-brainer-y. Perhaps using a casting stat could be a skill feat or class feat if you wanted to include the option.

Speaking personally I'd use a different damage type for the default, likely either bludgeoning or piercing to represent being struck with magical force. Bludgeoning would likely be my go-to both because it fits with a lot of things staves may shoot, globs of water and chunks of rock and so on, and would also mean that a staff would default smack someone with its one-handed damage at range.

IMO the only real issue is when the spam is also silly enough for other folks to respond to it, which keeps bringing the thread back and makes it harder for the mods to get rid of.

Perpdepog wrote:

QuidEst wrote:

Ravingdork wrote:

They got rid of Kostchtchie? Why? What lore changes were there, if any?

He was a D&D-made deity that Pathfinder was using, and with pretty minimal changes. While he's certainly got some allusions to Koschei the Deathless, the misogynistic frost giant deity part of it is D&D's work.

Which honestly makes me happy, because it means we may get a more direct Koschei analog in future. He'd be a real fun baddy to have show up in Irrisen or somewhere, hiding things inside of things inside of things inside of a lake.

Irrisen dolls...

After all, those cargoes of Stavian tech might have a stowaway or two.

A steampunk, or I guess electro-punk, lich version of Koschei would go very hard.

Would Resonance be a separate pool from investiture, in that case? I do like the core idea of being able to cast from a wand more than once per day, but if Resonance is added as its own resource, it would effectively give any wand-user lots of free casts from the get-go, which would tie back to some of the issues mentioned in the previous thread in my opinion.

I’d say if there’s an intent here to create a wand-based archetype, that may potentially be a good starting point: casting lots of extra wand spells might be completely fine with the right feat investment, and archetype feats could be a good way to trial different mechanics you’d want out of wands.

The impression I got is that your Resonance pool is split off from your Investiture (I always think I'm talking about Cosmere when I use that word), and it applies to all magic items, I think.

I do agree with Teridax that getting to use a wand a ton of times each day is probably more trouble than it's worth. I'm also not sure you necessarily need to make Resonance locked off behind a feat or archetype. It can just be something you give to your players.

IMO the real question is how to make it important enough to enough builds, which loops around to what you're expecting it to be spent on. Are you thinking only wands, for example?

Also, on the subject of wands and Resonance, I think the way I'd implement would either have Resonance be equal to half your level, rounded up, or maybe turn all your unspent Investiture points into Resonance, so there is a choice between wearing lots of permanent items or triggering temporary ones.

As for wands, what about spending a Resonance point lets you auto-succeed on the check to see if it is broken or not? You can't wand spam all the time, but you do double the efficiency of all the wands you own.
I could also see Resonance being used for a couple other consumables. Spending a Resonance point rather than burning a talisman, for example, meaning that you can keep using it as long as you have points to spend.

I'd be down with it. Are you intending the blasts to key off of Dex, or off of a casting stat?

The other question is, what kinds of damage are you thinking of? I'm assuming the damage type would be related thematically to the staff somehow, but how broad are you thinking of going?

Ravingdork wrote:

They got rid of Kostchtchie? Why? What lore changes were there, if any?

He was a D&D-made deity that Pathfinder was using, and with pretty minimal changes. While he's certainly got some allusions to Koschei the Deathless, the misogynistic frost giant deity part of it is D&D's work.

Which honestly makes me happy, because it means we may get a more direct Koschei analog in future. He'd be a real fun baddy to have show up in Irrisen or somewhere, hiding things inside of things inside of things inside of a lake.

@Teridax, if you implemented wands as you've proposed, how would you change the spontaneous caster's ability with a staff to spend one charge and use a spell slot for a staff's spell? Your wands sound like they do exactly the same thing, so what would you suggest for a new staff-based benefit?

This isn't a challenge, BTW, it's a genuine question. The idea of an item that adds a new spell to someone's repertoire is one I've been surprised we haven't gotten yet. (Well not all that surprised, I guess. General design ethos puts spells at more of a premium in 2E than 1E.)

Also, just throwing this out there, but I'm someone who loves them both some wands and staves.

When both Pathfinder and Starfinder had monthly Adventure Paths, those were the only two monthly periodicals that I subscribed to. When Starfinder shifted from monthly softcover books to hardcovers, I had all 51 softcovers and got the first two hardcovers, but the joy of flipping through a print book when it arrived in the mail every month was gone. It seems to me that there is already a glut of hardcover adventures on the market. After 2 hardcovers, I canceled my Starfinder AP subscription. As mentioned above, this decision may help local stores keep a whole adventure path in stock but it hurts subscribers.

It is more disappointing that the Pathfinder Adventure Path is following in the footsteps of Starfinder because there is more history behind it and (for my mileage) the quality of the campaigns was better. I have the current 220 Pathfinder APs and continued to enjoy them as the premiere monthly periodical in the world of fantasy RPGs. Oh well, it had a good run. Clearly the decision was made years ago and can't be changed now. I suppose that l will continue the subscription for at least one or two hardcovers and see how it goes, but l suspect it will fizzle out like the Starfinder AP.

Anybody have good suggestions for a new monthly fantasy RPG periodical to take up?

Does it have to be physical print? If not then maybe consider the PFS or SFS scenarios. They're naturally a fair bit shorter, but they are still adventures to read if that's your jam, and they've got a bit of lore in them.

The Bestiaries are books from the older, pre-remaster edition of Pathfinder 2e. While their content is still mostly usable with the Remastered rules, it will require some adaptation.

Specifically you'll need to swap monsters over from the old alignment-based system, where alignment was a damage type, to the new rules, which involve sanctifying to Holy or Unholy, and typically do their damage through spirit damage, which affects a larger number of creatures. Thankfully a lot of examples of the types of creatures affected by Holy/Unholy have already been reprinted, so you can use them as benchmarks to figure out what you want to do.

I really wish they had removed the different grades of materials and also the rune-gating, and made precious materials a lot cooler. At least if the effects were awesome the wildly out to lunch prices could be justified.

I ignore rune-gating at my tables so no one has to bother with special materials if they don't want to.

As-is, precious materials are essentially another monetary loot drop that is hard to slot in anywhere it'd actually be exciting without unbalancing party wealth.

Have you experienced any issues with everyone having precious material weapons for dealing lots of bonus damage? IIRC that's the reason for the grades and rune-gating; precious material cost increases because the value of the weaknesses they trigger, and resistances they bypass, increase as the game progresses.

I dunno how much of an issue it'd actually be in play, and I'm interested in making precious materials more accessible in my games because I think they're neat, so I figured I'd ask. (Still need to come up with a new benefit for adamantine armor, too. Being built Tonka tough doesn't help a ton in a game where almost nothing targets your armor.)