To start with, run the adventure "Trouble under Otari" before running a custom game. The adventure is the perfect tutorial, and is the best way to learn. Having more dice is always a good idea, but also make sure to have snacks, those always help.
I mean, wood harder than steel will definitely require some very special tools that party will almost certainly not have, and to maximize the value it will also most likely require some very specialized skills the party will also probably not have. I feel like between the tools an labor, the party would only get 1-2 thousand gp from a tree, and would likely take like a month to get to a city that has these tools and labor. Very minor spoiler for this section of SOT, but you can make 1-2k in a month with other benefits in like a session or two.
What would you guys think if PF3e went with a system similar to that of Team+'s essence casting? Do you think it would make it better or worse for casters?
I think it would be substantially worse. First, it is way harder to understand with far more moving parts. It encourages casters to interact even less with the 3 action system by heavily punishing 1 action spells. And it comes with so many little additions and changes to stop exploits that I think even if its technically stronger, it is less fun for most players. I think the idea of non daily casting is fine, but it would need to be designed from the ground up to be good, not tacked on to an already existing magic system.
First, unless this is somehow not season of ghosts, every encounter should either be very easy, or avoidable, so try avoiding them. Second, it does not seem like you're actually having trouble with the encounters, you're having trouble with the time crunch. In which case, rushing into a bad situation will not help you or the town. The town has survived overnight, it can survive 20 minuets for you to take care of yourself.
Season of ghosts is also designed for 4 players, you have 3. If you are still having issues, see if your GM is adjusting for that. If they saw that many encounters are easy for 4 players, and then made them even harder, they should probably stop that.
Look, animist is a good class. It's a very good class. It may even be the best caster. But it has multiple flaws that do not make it the broken undisputed best caster some of you want it to be. A large amount of your apparition spells will always be mediocre to kinda bad, most of your focus spells need you to be in close range on a durable for a caster but still a caster chaise, your daily versatility is substantially restricted by your attribute modifiers, and the lower levels can be rough. It's still a very good class, but it's just a very good class, not some unstoppable behemoth.
… Deriven, you clearly still haven’t played the class. In the three hours since you said you would, all you’ve done is just rattle off feats independently of each other and given surface-level assessments of how they seem to you on paper, with no supporting experience. This is, as I recall, not the first time you’ve tried to fake credentials in this way, and in fact not even the first time you’ve done so for the Animist. All of this effort spent arguing could have been spent actually trying out an Animist in an adventure.
Just reading through and I feel that it hasn't really been mentioned that it is not necessary for the Animist to be equal or better than another class at certain niche's it just needs to be comparable or close. The Animist can be good at almost any niche with basically zero real investment.
Since this thread was made in August it has become evident that the animist is the undisputed best caster in the entire game, and arguably the best and strongest class overall. So it's interesting to see that be debated at all. It's definitely cracked even without considering how it can step on toes
It is not undisputed. Sorc, particularly imperial sorc, is definitely up there, as is bard. None of the animist focus spells come even close to lingering dirge of doom or inspire heroics.
If you have Fortunate Blow it's even better because you can't benefit from that, but the ally you're giving attacks to can. I know in PFS recently this was my most commonly used tactic and it worked really well.
If you have Fortunate Blow, you should be using demoralizing charge, which is objectively better. That is another reason strike hard is just ok, it does not maintain any sort of niche once you get access to higher level tactics.
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But I'm really surprised you rated it lower than Shields Up or Reload, which are incredibly specialized and in a "typical" party won't really do much of anything.
I felt that way about most of the Shove/Reposition tactics as well: they're good with the huge caveat that you need someone in the group setup to do that. But you can sit down at basically any PFS table and have people that can use Strike Hard.
If you notice, all of those are ranked lower than strike hard in the first bracket, which is how good they are in a typical, random party like you would find in society play. However, in the right party/situation, they can have higher highs, although even then, only double team and reload rank better in ideal scenarios (you have a really good athletics person/ you have multiple characters with guns), with the rest being about equal.
Battlecry! came out in late July. It is October, and yet no one has made a commander guide yet. So, over the last month I decided to make it myself. This is my first ever guide, but I am proud of it, and I hope people will find it useful. Feedback is always appreciated, and thank you for your time.
If we're extrapolating an option to prove a general rule anyways, then look at the snake animal companion. Animal companions have very similar rules about that attacks they can make, but the snakes advanced maneuver requires that the snake has a creature grappled, despite its attack not having the grapple trait. The only way this maneuver functions if any creature can just grapple a creature unless a rule explicitly says otherwise. If we're basing the core rules based on how bad they make an option, then I say that not being able to grapple making the snake totally non functional is worse than making advanced weaponry just kinda bad.
The main draw of free hand weapons is just how cheap they are. They take no hand, and without runes they cost almost no gold. Get one of the parry ones and you basically get a free feat. Get a doubling rune or the ranged equivalent, and you get all 3 damage types or an emergency ranged attack.
I feel slings are among the weapons that sadly suffer from the simple / martial / advanced division that weapons have. A sling is a d6 50 ft simple range weapon with the propulsive trait, while a composite shortbow is d6 60 ft martial weapon with the propulsive and deadly traits. The real deal breaker here is that slings have reload 1, while bows don't. I think its obvious reload 1 has to go because that's the worst thing from slings, but to avoid slings becoming composite shortbows but simple they either should have a d4 damage die and become martial or remain simple but lose propulsive.
I mean they could just remove the reload and probably be fine.
The gap between simple and martial weapons isn't supposed to be massive. Like a dagger is one die size smaller than a shortsword (and even has extra traits). a club is one die size smaller than all the standard d8 1h 1 trait martial melee weapons.
A reload 0 sling with no other changes is still a straight downgrade from the martial boomerang.
Boomerangs only return on missed strikes, so you need to spend additional resources to make that true. Full strength to damage is nice for characters that have high strength, but it isn't a one to one.
The description says it comes back on a successful throw. Rules text has been there before, like not being able to use a long bow on a horse, so all indications seem to be that it comes back on a successful throw (unique rules text) and an unsuccessful throw (the returning trait).
I feel like you could just put a "item DC by level" chart in the book with prices to upgrade and by done with it. I don't think anything is really lost when all lvl 8 items now have the same DCs.
How have they been affected by the Remaster even before being remastered themselves?
None of this is sarcasm, I'm curious.
one of their main class features, the ability to regain multiple focus points between combats, is just how focus points work now. Every caster in the game was given a fairly noticeable buff in the remaster except them. Plus, they weren't exactly the strongest caster to begin with.
But maybe a different kind of magus archtype that gives up spell strike could look like this. Cascade master?
-loses the spell strike feature and access to all spellstrike dependent feats and features like double spellstrike.
-Loses weapon specialization and greater WS
+ Gains arcane weapon specialization and greater arcane weapon specialization - while in arcane cascade stance gain the same damage bonuses weapon spec normally would have given as force damage or whichever other type you gained from arcane cascade. This is in addition to the benefits already given by arcane cascade.
+ Arcane cascade gains the following:
Can now be used as a free action after casting a slotted spell.
Level 5 arcane cascade provides a crit effect based on the damage type gained.
Level I dont know but higher? An improvement to hybrid study benefit (designed by someone actually good at designing balanced pathfinder stuff.)
+ level 11 or 13 actually? the magus archtype gains a quickened spell slot 2 ranks below their highest spell rank. The magic from this slot swells granting amazing alacrity. After casting a spell from this slot the magus archtype may make a strike as a free action. Or maybe studious spell slots become quickened slots instead of getting a new slot. Actually I think that sounds better becasue it limits what kinds of spells can be cast while gaining the free strike but also allows more uses of it that grows as the magus levels.
The problem with this idea is that at level 1, you literally trade in the entire main magus damage mechanic for 1 action a combat, if you use a slotted spell.
Instead of solving the issue with expensive magic ammo, what if there was just different kinds of mundane ammo? Using starfinder examples but you can probably find bow equivalents, but have rubber bullets or a stun setting which deals much less damage but makes the opponent off guard on a hit. High powered armor piercing rounds that can go though cover but need bracing to fire accurately. Tracer rounds that make your next shot more accurate, but also helps shots against you. Make it an action to swap between the ammos, and you have the basis of a very interesting ranged combat system. Melee builds need to either attack or do an effect but are fairly safe doing them, while ranged builds can do both at the same time at the cost of risky drawbacks.
I did the math. Standard martial with a bow (such as a melee dex fighter using a long bow as mentioned earlier in the tread, at levels 5+) vs a earth/fire kineticist using flying flame and a 1 action earth blast. The bow attacks 3 times a round, has full fundamental runes, and no property runes, and flying flame only targets one person. Nothing else has been included. As you can see those numbers look pretty dam close, with the kineticist doing better against higher level foes and the bow martial doing better against weaker foes, except against weaker foes flying flame is probably going to hit multiple creatures, something the martial will struggle with. So almost regardless of the encounter, the kineticist is coming off on top, and I'm pretty sure more investment and options will only help the kineticist.
There is however, a very noticeable drop off when both sides only have 2 actions. However as ranged characters, they don't need to move too much, so this is not as bad as it seems.
Twilight vampires are a deliberate twist on the traditional vampire myth, which is fine, the problem arises when a derivative version starts to replace or erase the original concept. Imagine if all vampires sparkled in sunlight. That would ruin countless stories that rely on the classic vampire weakness to sunlight. The reason Twilight’s sparkling vampires stand out is precisely because they contrast with the well-established idea that sunlight burns vampires to ash.
And how old do you think the idea that vampires die in sunlight is? Dracula doesn't die in sunlight, he just loses some powers. In fact, the plot of the original Dracula novel does not work if vampires die in sunlight. These ideas of what fantasy creatures are not set in stone at all.
Also, heres a bunch of depictions of dragons in medieval bestiaries, when people though they were real. Notice how most of them do not meet your qualifications.
Because It doesn't really do that, since It gives you ONLY the rune appropriate for the level your shield won't have the maxed out stats. You Need lower level runes anyway (this Is how It's written, i Hope i'm wrong)
I'm not perfectly fluent in all the rules, so someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but reinforcing runes are fundamental runes and those simply get replaced/upgraded as they increase, you don't put previous runes on. Unless reinforcing runes are different in some way that I'm unaware of.
That Is, i think, the problem. You're still required to buy shield because the rune on its own doesn't get you a shield as strong as a sturdy One (aka, the bare minimum).
One Major point of this ability Is to save cash, and It fails in that too lol.
you don't need sturdy, at least not on the backups. Just a regular steel shield with the free rune as a backup is way better than the no real backups shield champs had before
also, the new shield ally lets you use backups way better. Get like 3 extra steel shields for a few gp a pop, and use the new swap to get a new one when the old one breaks, and you can suddenly shield block a lot more than you could before.
Can someone please walk me through an example in which two Stealth rolls are made, one for Avoid Notice and one for Initiative, and both are meaningful?
I'm coming around, but still having issues wrapping my head around it. How is the first roll not wasted?
1st, If you succeeded the first roll, there is no combat. There is no initiative. You are never found. You only roll initiative if you failed and are spotted and attacked, where initiative represents how well you can either attack them back, or get out of there before they can meaningfully hurt you.
2nd, an ambush or surprise attack. the first roll is how well you can prepare for the attack, getting into position without being spotted, maybe using some actions that don't break hidden like recalling knowledge or hunting prey, things that going last in initiative will not take away. Then initiative is how well you can pull off that final step, can you hide the glint of your arrow as you pull it back? Can you walk quietly as you start to make your charge towards the camp?
I'm using a Katana (Shizuru). So is that not any good then?
I mean, the graph shows that its pretty dang close. If you want to only use the katana as a 1 handed weapon, yea you should probably just reflavor a rapier or something. But if you are going to use it two handed, then with the deadly its about the same damage as a d12 weapon, which the charts show is still very good. Slightly worse on any round where you have to hunt prey, noticeably better on any round where you already have hunt prey up.
I can understand the dissatisfaction. Sai, Nunchaku, and Bo Staff are all on the list of Monk weapons, so why isn't Katana?
Note that the katana was a weapon for samurai warriors. Not for monks.
Uhhhh... excuse me, but the sai, nunchaku, bo staff, and katanas are actually iconic ninja weapons.
Sais and Nunchaku, yes.
Bo staff and katana? No.
You're thinking of ninjato (ninja swords). They were cheaply made, and pretty much designed to be disposable.
As for the bo staff... how the heck would a ninja sneak around while carrying a 6-to-5-foot-long staff?
...Just because Donny uses one doesn't make it a historical ninja weapon.
Ninjas absolutely used bo staffs because they are just walking sticks, something that most of their disguises would reasonably have. 90% of the time, ninjas where just blending in via disguises, not slinking around in some sort of stealth suit.
Ok, has anyone actually seen high level aid actually break anything? Like at worst, the penalty for repeat aiding should fix most issues that could theoretically pop up. It really feels like people are trying to solve a problem that does not exist.
First of all, I neglected to mention that the character is an elf, which rules out ideas related to other ancestries.
Secondly, if there was a sword that did slashing damage and had the finesse and two-hand traits that would be a possibility. But there isn’t (at least not in core).
So it looks like I’m stuck with a katana expert.
Thanks again!
If you do go this route, I would suggest not being a monk. Monk will give you very, very little if you are using a non monk weapon. Go fighter with a monk dedication for those ki abilities if that's what you're after, but a monk with a non monk weapon is truly just a worse fighter.
While there definitely are ways to be master in the katana as a monk, there is no way to give the katana the monk trait. Without the monk trait, you will not be able to flurry of blows with it, or use any other monk features with it. I would either use a reflavored temple sword (which you would just need the feat monastic weaponry for), or reflavoring the fighter or some other class if you need to use a katana in particular.
How do people think like 90% of TTRPGs work, with rules just as if not more loose than aid? That other games are some lawless wasteland where players exploit the rules for their own gain, the the GMs are powerless to stop them? I have never actually seen anyone break the aid rules, or rules like them, just people that don't use them saying how easy they are to break. Loose rules are almost a requirement for TTRPGs, and is what separates them from CRPGs or war games, letting the wizard be creative and find a reasonable way to aid the fighter at range one time will not break anything, and there are already rules for them doing it every round. This feels like such a non problem.
When I played my bard in stolen fates (so levels 11-20), Rallying anthem was used so much more than dirge of doom purely because of the much higher range. I had so many 60 ft+ range spells that I was rarely within 30ft of a solo boss, and in a group fight I was usually only within range for like half of them. And due to bad luck, in most of the cases where I was within 30 ft of enemies either I was halfway though a lingering composition because they where too far away at the start of the fight or the enemies happened to be mindless. It just never seemed worth it to spend actions to move that close, not use lingering composition until round 2-3, just to debuff the attack rolls and saves.
Interesting, I am also playing Stolen Fate so perhaps Rallying Anthem is the way to go.
To be fair, I would not be surprised if the foundry module, which has bigger maps than the standard cramped maps of every AP, played a large roll.
When I played my bard in stolen fates (so levels 11-20), Rallying anthem was used so much more than dirge of doom purely because of the much higher range. I had so many 60 ft+ range spells that I was rarely within 30ft of a solo boss, and in a group fight I was usually only within range for like half of them. And due to bad luck, in most of the cases where I was within 30 ft of enemies either I was halfway though a lingering composition because they where too far away at the start of the fight or the enemies happened to be mindless. It just never seemed worth it to spend actions to move that close, not use lingering composition until round 2-3, just to debuff the attack rolls and saves.
Swap Rahadoum being atheist for jewish, and have the Pure Legion enforce Judaism only. With jews hunting and killing clerics of other religions to enforce jewish purity.
You'd need to go back a few thousand years to the time of the first temple, but yea, that happen IRL (although not to quite the same extent). Turns out zealots just kinda do that when they get put in charge of a state. Zealots being in power is bad regardless of what they are zealous for.
PF1 Oracle is a Rahadoumi who had to flee the country after receiving her powers.
She isn't the only Rahadoumi Iconic. There is Enora the 1st edition Arcanist but she is in self-exile because she worships Nethys. As well as Thaleon, The iconic Pyschic who is traveling the world as he is a brightness seeker but is otherwise seems to be a pleasant guy.
Ragadoumi seems to have an extremely high number of iconics per capita. Can anywhere else beat it?
First, the eidolon is way, way stronger than an animal companion. An animal companion nice, but not a replacement for a martial, while an eidolon is with its substantially better attack, AC, and damage. The total hp between the caster and the companion will be higher, but with the summoners higher base hp, its not that much higher, plus they only get hit by AoEs once, are twice as easy to be healed (you can battle medicine each one) and the hp will go to whoever needs it the most.
The main thing however is how flexible it is. more than even a minion, a summoner really has 4 actions in a round with act together, and the eidolon is much more capable of doing various actions than a minion. you really are two characters on the map, capable of doing so many creative things
The rare souls that do find peace with their ultimate fate instead serve the graveyard as its custodians or guardians.1
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This is more a form of quarantine than a punishment, out of a belief that these souls would be ill-served by a continued existence in the Great Beyond.
(totally going to take your word for it narrator. Way to fail the lampshade attempt and get the reader to think about how fvcked this sentence from Phar is)
Instead, here they remain forever dormant, eternally separated from the fabric of the Outer Planes and the rest of the multiverse. Those souls that still have the will to rouse themselves here are usually either those that have recently arrived or those consumed by emotion over their fate; some wander emotionlessly and in a haze, while others might beg visitors for aid or simply lash out at them in their rage.
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The vast field of graves is seemingly without end, stretching for over a thousand miles and filled with cold, quiet crypts that feel suffused with a sorrow unlike Pharasma's graveyards in the Universe. This sadness comes from the quiet reality of the fate of the souls at rest, for no glory in an afterlife nor rebirth will ever be given the souls that have been sent here.3
"Literally in between your other quotes wrote:
This fate is reserved only for certain atheists, because most of them are still subjected to Pharasma's nuanced judgments, which permit them to remain as ever-watching spirits in the Astral Plane, to pass on to the plane that best corresponds to their alignment, or to even be sent back to the Universe to be reincarnated and given a second chance at life. Furthermore, truly evil atheists that require punishment for their crimes are not given the solace of the Graveyard of Souls. Only those who angrily and completely reject all forms of divinity and the Cycle of Souls itself, are the ones that become interred in the Graveyard.
That sure seems like "could have gone elsewhere if they wanted to" to me.
Also, just a me thing, I would not trust a wiki, not on something this niche.
She has an entire sub-realm of souls she denies an afterlife to, who are wasting away in neglectful agony. A basement full of people, left to rot because they don't measure up to her standards. Note that *all* of them could have gotten an afterlife if they had pledged their soul to a god.
That "crime" of remaining unpledged, while having "not enough ethos" is how they end up locked away in her Gravelands, trapped until their soul-bodies eventually give out.
All of them could have gone to another afterlife. And the afterlife they have is not some horrible hellscape, its a peaceful spot. And if you do not want that spot, you can just go elsewhere. Pharasma is simply giving them the choice. Not being in the afterlife at all, going back to the material plane, appears to be an option based on how many animist religions there are, but it is not one taken frequently, likely for good reason. The people of the setting are not idiots. No matter how common place an evil is, there have always been people calling it out, from abolitionists of ancient Rome to Free France. No one in setting, outside of like ugathoa, is calling out pharasma as a tyrant, likely for a reason.
When a mortal dies, their soul travels to the Boneyard in the Outer Planes where they are judged by Pharasma, the goddess of the dead. Once they have been judged, their soul is sent on to their final reward or punishment in the afterlife, and in the process is transformed into a creature known as a petitioner. This process grants the soul a new body, one whose shape is the result of the prevailing philosophical forces of the plane to which it is sent. The petitioner's memories from their life are typically wiped nearly clean, allowing them to retain only a few hazy fragments akin to half-remembered dreams. Regardless of the petitioner's size, power, or nature in life, they're a Medium creature in their afterlife.
So no, you have provided 0 textual reason to think the amnesia is natural to death. It's an artificial thing imposed by Pharasma herself, and happens after the mortal is judged.
There is also no evidence that Pharasma is responsible for this (from this source at least). Like most of your arguments, as far as we know this is an inherent part of the system outside of anyone's control, and you have not provided any evidence that other systems wouldn't lead to much worse outcomes.
Say what you will about the current system, but its efficient, and if it stops being efficient the universe ends. Could there be some way thats just as efficient, or even slightly less efficient but way more moral? Maybe, but no one in universe seems to think so. I can't think of any cannon characters that think the current system needs to be replaced except like Ugathoa, and I would expect any that do exist to be similarly evil.
reading to this it feels like Trip has taken personal offense to Pharasma existing
while the old lady is just sitting there, doing her job, basically not bothering anyone
The issue isn't just Pharasma herself, but what she represents. She's essentially the Pathfinder equivalent of D&D's Wall of the Faithless, a feature so blatantly biased that it was thankfully removed in later editions. Just as the Wall was a thinly veiled attempt to punish atheist players (reflecting its origins in a more Christian-dominated era), Pharasma and the surrounding lore are clearly intended to shut down any discussion about the moral complexities of necromancy. She's a divine "I win" button designed to silence any necromancer who dares to suggest that raising the dead isn't automatically an act of evil. For players who enjoyed the morally gray necromancy of earlier editions, Pharasma is a slap in the face.
I mean, with the removal of mechanical alignment, it is now still morally gray. You are causing the end of the universe, but how much are you personally doing? If you can feed your kingdom with an undead workforce at the cost of causing the apocalypse to happen 100,000,000,000 years from now instead of 100,000,000,001, isn't that worth it? Whats more important, a small drop in the bucket with the universe at stake, or monumental good only done in a small area?
Creatures that hail from or have a strong connection to Axis, the Boneyard, or the Maelstrom are called monitors. Monitors can survive the basic environmental effects of planes in the Outer Sphere.
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Psychopomp Allies wrote:
The mandate of marut inevitables is similar to that of psychopomps. Generally, the practical psychopomps are content to let an unyielding marut complete its mission and swoop in afterward to ensure the work has been done, but occasionally, they may work together.
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This is exactly the kind of willful blindness I'm talking about. For whatever reason, when it comes to Pharasma, people will somehow completely ignore the text in front of them if it makes her order look bad, lol.
You did read that most just let them be, and only occasionally help, presumably in classes like undeath and not in cases that pharasma is fine with. Also, the psychopomps have autonomy, and do not inherently reflect the will of pharasma. Also why did you bring up the definition of monitor? I would not blame asmodius for something a daemon does, even though they are both fiends.
Edit, as I did not see your edit. Extending your life is not thwarting death. She like literally lets resurrection magic work. Per the spells themselves, she can just stop them if she wants, but they clearly work most of the time.
We also have direct evidence there are entire species of outsider doing nothing but pursuing and killing mortals for the "heinous crime" of extending their lives.
https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=538
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A marut is tasked with hunting mortals who cheat death by artificially extending their lifespans. This includes those who seek undeath, such as liches and vampires, but also includes those who use powerful magic to cling to their youth, use divination to discover and avoid an appointed death, or call too often on the power of resurrection. Once the marut has selected its target, the inevitable pursues its quarry without surcease or deviation until either it or the target is dead.
These guys are L15, with divination, plane shift, dispel magic, dimension door, etc. They are literally designed to be relentless and efficient hunter-killers that exist for the sake of this job.
As soon as a Marut finishes one kill, it will get a new target, and then hunt that one to the death.
And they don't seem to be connected to Pharasma. Someone else doing things that Pharasma did not ask for is not a criticism of Pharasma, but of the Aeons.
doesn't have str or dex as key ability but have many feature and feat rely on hitting enemy
So is the thaumaturge, which is widely considered to be one of the best classes in the system and certainly one of the most popular too.
Is the thaumaturge a badly designed class?
not that I disagree with everything else, but the devs have stated that the thaumaturge is one of the least popular classes. It is very popular among experienced and active players who are likely to post about it, but not amongst the majority of more casual players who never post.
There is so much stuff here that I don't think I can get into everything. I'm just going to leave it at most of this seems to be a GM issue and not an AP issue, as most of that is not how the book goes, and everything you blame the AP for is handled better by the book. I am not claiming that this section of the AP is a masterpiece, but it isn't bad. The only bad part of the ap is the first chapter of book 4, which you should just replace.
All in all, this feels like a very inaccurate representation of the book, or perhaps an accurate representation of player/gm error. Like really, book 2 is when you complain? Book 4 I get, but book 2?
Trip.H described him- or herself as a player. Therefore, this is how their GM represented the book to the players. The same GM who gave a thousand yard stare whenever Trip.H made a rational suggestion that differed from the module's plot.
And in the robber story, the module makes no suggestion that the PCs need to capture the robbers alive. The robbers fight them with lethal damage, so the PCs might respond likewise. Loakan is mentioned as fighting to the death, though she surrendered in my game. The stolen musical instruments are listed in the treasure of the room with no suggestions to the GM about how to return the instruments to the buskers.
** spoiler omitted **
...
the module does not tell you these things, correct. Trip was making seem like the module was telling you to do the wrong thing, when it tells you nothing at all, because each party can and will do things differently. Most of these issues seem to be GM error, and not really the fault of the AP. It's a pretty average section of a AP, and not an example of why the whole AP is broken.
Also, these robbers are not smart at all, considering who they're betraying. To them, no witnesses=no problems.
Just a heads up, but I'm an L10 player in SoT, and it is going to get so, so much worse than "Why don't we ask a teacher for help?" pretty quick. The "plot nonsense" plaguing that AP had to become a running joke at our table, because otherwise it would have killed our fun. "Who in the city needs help tying their laces today, I wonder?" type jokes.
I super duper recommend you as a GM who is willing to perform triage on situations like that, read the books up until the PCs leave the city behind, asap. Don't wait and try to improvise without that fore-knowledge.
It'll make a world of a difference if you are able to know ahead of time what actually comes back around later, what does not, and therefore what's "safe" to invent and add to the existing material.
While I've not played many APs, SoT has had by far the worst "Why don't we just do X?" --> GM gives me the thousand yard stare --> "OK, never mind, we don't do that obviously rational thing." because of how little the AP expects PCs to act like thinking beings with agency.
SoT also has the very worst murder-hobo moment I've seen or heard of in an AP, and that entire "mini arc" needs a whole lot of fixing.
** spoiler omitted **...
This is grossly misleading
What actually happens:
First, the police are of no help... because the cities leadership has been infiltrated by serpent folk who are actively harming their efforts, plus this seems like very small potatoes at first.
The thieves do not fight to the death, they run away at low hp. there is no indication you need to kill them, the non lethal tools you have been using throughout the campaign will also work. The party should be chastised if they kill them. The boss absolutely has important info, like the name of the mob boss, which you still don't know. There is no indication that the part has to take the loot, they can absolutely give it back to the city. It just lists what is there.
The timing of the assignments is up to the GM, and should be done in whichever way works best for the party. Even if the GM just runs though them in the order they are printed, there's a bunch of stuff in between the events you listed and would have a better narrative pacing then what you went though.
Also, I might just be missing something, but when did firepot kill anyone? He caused flashy but minor damage to some property, and burned someone as a child because he didn't know he was a sorcerer.
All in all, this feels like a very inaccurate representation of the book, or perhaps an accurate representation of player/gm error. Like really, book 2 is when you complain? Book 4 I get, but book 2?
Actually, having access to a magical wikipedia is a Level 1 spell. Pocket Library.
As if. It actively refuses to give any answers. +1 to a skill you already have can't represent encyclopedias. They should give a skill you don't have at least.
I know, I know you are joking and I'm picking on trifles.
Just because you can look up a scientific document does not mean you're initiated enough to understand it.
Look at this day and age where you can look up anything on the internet, yet look at how much technical knowledge is actually known by the average joe despite this.
Things that pf characters want to know about in the game almost always aren't comparable with advanced science. You can look up an elephant on wiki and you just get a trove of information about it: size, some anatomy, some biology, some behaviour - anything pf character would want to know about a creature and much more. And you don't need to be a biologist for this. Moreover you could know nothing at all about elepants before this - and now you know enough.
Yes, identifying would be a bit harder, but there are identification guides.
I mean, these are physical books. you could easily spend the whole time just looking for the right book. You go though the index looking for "elephant" when it's actually under "pachyderm" for some reason. A success is actually finding the right page and book.
Why is everyone assuming malice when "the devs just though it was a cool idea and didn't think to hard about it" is way more likely scenario? There is enough people supporting it even here that clearly this idea is out there. I don't think it was a good idea, but I don't think they just wanted to make the rouge the best class. If they did, they could have gone a lot further.
I can see that. But the problem from Paizo's side comes when the power of these options prevents them from publishing new things (Sure Strike has constrained the design of spell attack rolls since day 1). And by your own reasoning, you're free to revert these changes in your home games.
This is a common rationalisation, but we have yet to see the removal of other such "constraints" resulting in meaningful change.
Actually, I think we have. The devs were fairly clear that they wanted all ancestories to be +stat +free instead of +stat +stat -stat +free, even publising whole books with +stat +free ancestries, but then they errataed the alternate ability boosts, and they started printing the old style again, likely because the errata made +stat +free not needed any more. Now they only do it when its thematic to not have a flaw. It's not like they're going to make a huge announcement about it.
Pathfinder feels like it has turned into video game patch notes, but written by game designers who clearly never coordinated with one another.
The fact that these mistakes are made to begin with: totally and utterly normal in the industry, still better than many if not most companies of a similar scale. The fact that Paizo fixes these issues makes them some of the best in the business. Other companies would just ignore it
