Perpdepog's page

And there's Saint Cuthbert and the mace that bears their name.

In a similar vein to deserts, I have a story. Not sure if this counts as a "Gotcha GM," though.

The party was in a desert trading post and my character had a few drinks. The GM tells me that I blackout and wake up in the back of a caravan. Shocked, I say, "I get out of the caravan."

The GM laughs and goes, "Well now you're alone in the desert. The caravan is moving too quickly for you to catch up with in the sand. It was going to an oasis, but you'll never make it. You're dead."

I'm going to assume this GM has never had to walk through desert sands before.

Or ever been on, near, or seen an actual caravan before, either.

Those really nitche hacks might be made for the Hack Capacitor feature. Helpful, ish, if you are in a situation where you may need them, but not worth burning one of your precious actual hack slots on.

"Fair fights do not exist. Fairness is for those too stupid to cheat, and fights are for those too clumsy to sneak."

Maybe I wasn't clear. So in PF1, the DC was partially based on the spell level, aye? While the damage scaled with caster level. However, you could use a higher level slot to memorize the spell. What I was wondering was, would the spell, cast using a higher level slot, increase the DC as if it had been a higher level spell?

To answer this question, no. Memorizing a spell at a higher level slot doesn't increase its DC, mainly because you don't need to. All your spells track off the same DC now; you don't have lower DCs for your lower-level spells.

This is the loop hole for my green lantern! Thank you!

In brightest day,

So I was going to post in this thread originally to try defending the Nightarch needlers because their DC to injections got so high, eventually getting a DC +10.

Low and behold I look up the guns in question and there isn't anything about DCs going that high ... anywhere.

My brain can't handle farts of this magnitude!

Gotta agree on the holographic artist's cash being super great, though I don't think I'd ever use it for summoned monsters. True, you get a buddy, but their stats will lag so far behind you and the threats you'll be facing that they're going to be made into pudding if they ever get into a fight.
Still, it does make summoning aeons a more appealing option now that they don't last rounds per level, which is pretty neat.

I'm more curious how well Cash Hacks stack up against Hack Capacitor.

I sadly can't find the quote now, but I believe the intent is each enemy struck takes the additional damage once. So if you hit one enemy with all your missiles they would take the extra damage only once, but if you hit a different enemy with each missile then each one would take the additional damage.

So why does Cackle need to be changed? I would agree Witch needs a little something else, but why should it remove Cackle?

Mostly because not everyone wants to be a cackler. It was an optional hex you could take in 1E, a pretty good one but still optional, but now it's become a core part of the class and to some, myself included, the idea that we'll all be cackling feels a bit restrictive and/or goofy.

DOH?

The noise Homer Simpson makes when he realizes he's just done something stupid.

Doh!

*sigh*

So many stringent people in Second.

I'm, kind of confused how a rules interpretation that emphasizes going with what you intuit making sense over needing strictly defined traits on every attack is considered more stringent.

That's the opposite of what stringent means.

dm4hire wrote:

My thought on altering it would be to make the coven feature a ritual instead, that keeps it intact and available. A class restriction could be applied to make it available to witches only.

I could definitely see this working. Getting any use out of the Coven class feature is so far into the realm of GM fiat it might as well be a ritual. I'd still open it up to any witch and not just the occult tradition though.

I second (third?) this becoming a ritual. Coven creation is depicted as a ritualistic affair in literature anyway, well perhaps other than in Disk World where witch covens are mostly formed by inviting your neighbors over for tea.

Making it a ritual also means that the witches have to periodically regroup to do it again, which feels thematic to the concept as well.

Actually while I'm talking on rituals, does anyone else feel like the witch would benefit from a feat which made them better at performing rituals?

My wife read through the Investigator class & her first comment was a single question:

"Why don't they have a Paranormal Investigator?"

And now, I hurt to see a Paranormal Investigator option! For the time being, maybe... multi-class archetype into Bard?

They've said they will add onto the class. I really hope that Paranormal Investigator is one of the areas where they expand the class!

My guess is it's exactly as you said; because this isn't the full class. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the paranormal investigator showed up in the APG, or soon after. I think at least three investigator archetypes for 1E were paranormally focused, probably more, and the Paranormal Investigator is a theme in Starfinder.

My group's Bard (lv10) has 15 base known spells, plus 11 in bonus spells from signatures. Those would be Soothe, Illusory Creature, Dispel Magic, Phantasmal Killer, and she hasn't picked one for 5th level yet. She's considering Magic Missile (which would bring her to a total of 28 known spells). Yes, signature spells work in reverse.

For what it's worth I'd recommend that route too. Magic Missile is great and I love it, particularly with the new variable casting time if you want to turret up and bombard, but there are lots of little funtime 1st-level spells I would rather take if I had the option.

If you want to be even more flexible you can purchase a pair of gauntlets, each of a material of your choice, purchase doubling rings, and then give at least the "main" gauntlet the shifting rune.

True you can't really have this going until level 11 when the greater rings become an option, unless you get them early, but Shifting does let you change your gauntlets into any one-handed weapons you want, and when I imagine it I think of having liquid metal gauntlets, which sounds bonkers cool.

I’m just happy that operatives can now be ninjas with Shuriien Assassin and death touch. Although they really need to solve the problem of needing to apply weapon fusions to unarmed attacks. Mainly just to make them magical.

And don't forget Soft Movement that lets ou run across liquids. And isn't there an option for getting nearly constant spider climb, too?

Friendly lizard fiction? 10/10!

BigNorseWolf wrote:

I do really like the opt in archetypes.

How many are there? I've skimmed and noticed the Battle Flower and Esotericist are completely opt in, Starwright has the opt in on additional uses of your only ability.

Those are the ones I counted as well. I suppose you can also lump Free Trader into that campe since, while they aren't technically opt-in, they only change a feature at a single level so deciding whether or not to take it is functionally very similar.

I'm really digging how many "classic" class types we got in this book. At least three flavors of monk I can count, a barbarian, a bard, a ranger, and a paladin.

I still find it a little odd that the Flame Mystery doesn't grant resistance to, you know, flame.

I think they're enthusiastic, not frightened. They are their element; they love it above all the other ones and want to share it.

"Hello, small meat thing! I'm a fire elemental. Do you like fire? I like fire. I have lots of fire do you want some? I think you'd like it if you tried it here have some I don't mind sharing!"

The Raven Black wrote:

Arachnofiend wrote:

Ventnor wrote:

I also like "Oracle's Burden" as a name for the class feature.

We can't call it Oracle's Burden because Oracle's Burden is a spell that inflicts the penalties of your curse on an enemy.

...We are getting that spell back right

The spell could be called Share the burden (or Spread the love).

This is an acceptable compromise

Incidentally, if the name is changed, that makes this spell a very logical candidate for being called Oracle's Curse.

I think it's probably the former. Then again, I think that all large weapons are two-handed by default so I'm not sure that you can wield a weapon in your off hand.

Honestly, if I can blow people up just by stating my preferences, I need to do it more often. Sooooo... I play theatre of mind, grid and minis is inferior in every way.

But if we don't have minis, what will we bobble up and down and make clang bang, pew pew noises with?

... Not that I do, you understand. Merely asking for a friend.

Hypothetically.

A hypothetical friend...

I'm not sure why you'd ever want to re-roll a check using a hero point if you can also use a point to automatically bump your degree of success up by one step, aside from perhaps whenever you crit fail at something. Not to mention that given the party the ability to choose when they critically succeed can skew things in their favor, because now they can spend a hero point with every especially large and painful spell to reap its greatest benefits.

How fast can a Dwarf with Unburdened Iron move in Heavy armor ?

What about a non-Dwarf character getting it through Adopted Ancestry?

Archetype your way into being a Hellknight Armiger and you will actually move faster in your heavy armor than out of it! And that should be snaggable with Adopted Ancestry; it's not like walking in armor is due to dwarven physiology, at least not as far as I know.

Anyone know if we can push these numbers up higher with the Bellflower Tiller archetype at all?

I'm 100% theater of the mind. Since I can't see, trying to run combats on a map means I effectively had to try and imagine precise placement of between six and sometimes upwards of twelve or fourteen figures on different terrains, and it became too much of a headache to eventually bother with. Like playing chess if your pieces could shoot fireballs and summon dinosaurs.

I like theater of the mind for the flexibility it lends you in being able to describe tactical movement and encounter layout. As others have mentioned it requires a degree of trust between the players and GM, but since that cooperative trust is one of the cornerstones of why I enjoy tabletop games it's never been an issue.

Most of my games are currently online, but if I ran for an IRL group again I may also supplement my descriptions with some minis to position on a table or what have you to show vague approximations of where they are ... and also because people love playing with minis.

Vigilante being an archetype seems eminently logical. We already have some feats that fit the mold.

I think it is safe to say that there is no current method for giving a non-horse animal companion mount yet.

PF2 is still very much new, so we are sure to get expanded rules for animal companions. Why wouldn't there eventually be a "Domesticated" trait for an animal companion that gives it Mount?

Or perhaps a variant Magical saddle that provides Mount. There is already a president for it with the Barding of the Zephyr providing one of the benefits of Mount after all.

Magical saddle is what I'm betting on myself.

EltonJ wrote:

Metaphysician wrote:

Also, since I haven't said it already: uplifted crows. Because if we don't uplift them first, they will uplift themselves. And they will remember the slight.

*caw!* :)

Wouldn't be better to insert Tengu into the setting than to uplift crows?

Maybe? However, from my perspective, the mythological origins and baggage of the Tengu results in a very different species than a Corvid Uplift. Its like how a Wolf Uplift is very much *not* a Werewolf, because a Wolf Uplift is presumably premised in modern scientific understanding of Wolf behavior and socialization, and plausible guesses about what kind of sentient behavior and society would emerge from such. Same with Corvids.

And if you uplift them through science you get to introduce the elements of being confused with tengu into their lore, which could be fun.

I never considered "Oinodaemon" to be his name - to me it always sounded like more of a title. For one thing, he's always referred to as the Oinodaemon. And unless he was the namesake of the daemon race (a possibility of course), including -daemon in his name would be an odd choice. It's Asmodeus, not The Asmodevil; Rovagug and not The Rovaqlippoth. Whatever the case, seems like Oino was benched in the beginning because there were no mortal deaths for him to embody, and a second time when the Four Horsemen turned on him. Poor schmuck can't catch a break.

Maybe something like an ontodaemon?

I still like idea of current Asmodeus actually being separate from the original one xD But yeah, either way, with Asmodeus there are always some lies included in his versions of creation myths

Asmodeus 2.0, some assembly required, lies and flattery included.

Right, as Taja said.

I suppose for clarity, my advice would be don't dabble in spellcasting feats because they don't scale well unless you go the whole route.
Either dip first feat, first feat + focus feat (or two), or the whole shebang.

Unless you're focusing on buffing and utility spells that don't need any attack rolls or saves. Neat thing about cleric is that the divine list has quite a few handy buffing spells and you can also poach a few outside of your tradition depending on which deity you are worshiping.

As an addendum, it is, however, possible to multiclass as an elf at first level. Ancient Elf heritage be awesome like that.

I would suggest looking at one of the Adventure Paths. They have the campaign written in them already, and while I can't see and don't know specifically, I do believe they also come with the maps of their various encounter zones, though they'd be small and fit in the book itself.

Or if you want some smaller scenarios you can pick up and play you can try the Starfinder Society Scenarios. They are built to be playable with minimum setup time because the GM for any given session is expected to rotate, and are intended to be completed in anywhere from two to four hours.

Hobgoblin dog toy - that arm thing you put a ball in to fling it super far, but for bombs.

"I call it, The Bomblonger!"

I take it that the first group of deities each representing an alignment is not a coincidence?

ETA: Never mind. Anyway, I take it that the Throne Dude is the Oinodaemon?

Or whoever/whatever he killed to get the position of top daemon, I'd bet.

So the Bubbly Boss of Lovecraft is highly integrated into the Lost Omens lore (at least in this POV), very interesting...

I'm pretty sure Lovecraft's mithos has been part of the setting from the very beginning. I would be shocked if it was just JJ who was a fan at this point.

Edit: The thing I'd like to know is where The Monad was during all this stuff, since Concordance of Rivals positions it coming into existence either shortly after, or the same time as, Pharasma.
That is assuming it didn't exist already.

Perpdepog wrote:

The only powers you will currently want wisdom for seem to be Ki Blast and Quivering Palm. Nothing else requires an enemy to save against your DC.

Out of the Ki-fuelled powers, you mean.

Stunning Strike (the level 2 Monk feat) does require an enemy to save against your DC. Your class DC, that is.

Given that the title of the thread is "Monk ki powers and wisdom," I felt that was something people would infer, yes.

And actually I missed one, because Wholeness of Body also uses your wisdom to help boost the counteract check. There are the Houses of Perfection powers now too but they hadn't been released yet.

Ravingdork wrote:

However, nearly all of the official NPC stat blocks make no mention of clothes.

How do you cope with NPCs whose clothes are described in boxtext but not in their statblock? How do you cope!?

Simple.

Body paint.

NPCs buy gallons, and gallons of body paint.

Cyouni wrote:

You still can't wear two sets of boots.

I am considering allowing the characters in my campaign to wear one pair of enchanted socks, one pair of enchanted boots, and one pair of enchanted overshoes. Now that I have that down in black and white, I think that most enchanted boots should really be overshoes, so that they can be combined with the boots from armor.

However, the PCs are currently 1st level, so I have a lot of time to reconsider this plan. At the moment, given the new backpack rules in the errata, I am more worried about someone trying to wear two backpacks, which I won't allow.

Make sure one of them gets the set of sacred silver silken sylven stockings of steady spider stepping.

Anyone have any guesses on what those weapons might be?

I'm betting on something to let you thorw bombs farther, myself, or some more weapons like the alchemical crossbow.

The problem is solved if players use this simple system.

In their list of equipment, they should write:
- "backpack w/" followed by a list of the items in the backpack and a subtotal of bulk for that backpack, from which they can subtract 2 - or 1 bulk, really, since the backpack itself weighs one bulk.
- "satchel w/" + list
- "bandolier w/" + list (for items that are readily available to hand)
- "belt pouch w/" + list

This is what I naturally did with my characters, following that practice from PF1. There are some circumstances where it is important to know what is stored where.

You know what? I'm stealing this idea. I sometimes get lots of adventure clutter and this seems handy and a natural extension of how I do stuff.

You could always give them this, instead.

Are you saying that DESE GUNZ don't count as weapons? Darn.

Really this errata just formalizes the way I was treating bulk anyhow. On my character sheets I make I separate my gear into Consumable, Held, Worn, and Stowed. I take it as an assumption that all of my Stowed gear, which is the stuff in my backpack, gets set aside for things other than encounter mode-style walking.

Similarly, what about other containers, like belt pouches, satchels, sacks and the like?

Also, loving the errata so far. Improvized weapons, yaaaaay! And throwing some love to unarmed champions is great, too.

How is that illogical, when one of the classes that casts is called a Technomancer, i.e., Mancy of the Tech.

Just for the sake of playing devil's advocate here, not all technomancers mance their tech in exactly the same way, so what one may understand another may not.

That being said, I am also firmly in the "spellchip spells originate with the chip" camp. It makes sense that the physical object would be the source of the effect, and really if they didn't work that way you would end up with the inverse scenario.
Party breaks into a techno's lair and are promptly pummeled with the six heat leech chips the techno has nestled in other computers around their facility.

Personality traits beyond "I like nature" is pretty much the answer. From a player side, having a personality trait like holding deep grudges or being naturally protective of inherently curious give ways for the GM to prod you along. Make an enemy who ticks off the character, or one who threatens beloved NPCs, or who are engines to unravel.

One of my PF1 Druids is goal-oriented, short-tempered, with a deep respect for traditions and a powerful hatred of devils, aberrations, and undead. The GM knows they can get him to go along with basically anything if the enemy antagonize him or his friends or is a devil aberration or undead, or if they are disrespecting his traditions.

I can also attest to how well this works. My curmudgeonly old dwarven druid operated on a fairly similar premise. Half the reason they participated in the campaign was because he both hated our foes for "muckin' about with what they ought not" and because they pitied the rest of the party.

Inkfist wrote:

The Halloween special.

A (Pumpkin) gourd headed leshy ranger with the farm hand background.

Take the precision edge and a bird companion for your first feat.

Now you are a pumping headed scythe-weilding scarecrow that attacks people with a 'dire-crow'

The damage is much better than you'd think, and the persistent bleed and miss chances you hand out are

Too late for this year, but I'm stealing this for the antagonist for a halloween 1-shot next year. Leshy feats mesh with it so well too. Ritual Reversion makes for a great ambush in a pumpkin patch, Shadow of the Wild explains why the PCs won't be able to track down whatever has been killing in the woods, and Grasping Reach is just spooky.

Sure is. I've slapped it on my own Halloween leshy, a giant instinct barb. I was thinking of giving them Lucky Keepsake for that too-tough-to-die feel that many horror creatures have, but I just love the idea of a pumpkin suddenly blossoming into a cackling, scythe-wielding giant too much not to take that idea now.

Can't get a crow going with barb, sadly, though I guess I could multiclass ranger or druid and try to pick it up if it doesn't devour too many feats.

3) If you want higher AC and use the Shield as a second weapon ( ex, twin feint or double slice ) then go with a shield made of specific materials, to bypass enemy resistances, put an upgrade on it and use it for a weapon ( if it is your off hand, you will be needing a ring which shares the enchants on your main hand weapon ).

Technically you can combine this with options 1 or 2 since it's the shield boss or shield spikes that you would be making out of a special material and enchanting.

Mmmmmmm. I am loving the alternate ability scores especially. A small thing, but seeing some models of how such a thing should work will help in making up our own species variants later on.

Gonna whip me up a workable formian worker and taskmaster with this puppy.