![]()
![]()
shepsquared wrote: On top of that, the Graveyard of Souls isn't the only option for athiest souls. Some train under Phlegyas and become psychopomps themselves, some find peace, some still go to an outer plane as a petitioner and some get reincarnated. I always thought this, along with the book where an atheist begs Pharasma for help, was particularly insulting. It's almost as if it's saying that atheists can't hold to their ideals and end up bowing to the gods. If you become a psychopomp or beg a god for help, then you were never an atheist to begin with. shepsquared wrote: And even if it was the only option for athiests, the Graveyard of Souls is still an afterlife and the Boneyards is still part of the Outer Planes and the Cycle of Souls - the existance of which isn't a bad thing, anymore than Heaven and Hell existing is bad for the universe. Yes, it is bad if you are a real atheist because the gods supposedly created your kind when the previous world clearly had immediate reincarnation for dubious purposes. They deliberately cursed your kind with aging and did everything to prevent you from escaping this curse. When you died, they trapped your souls in a graveyard. If you are a true atheist, you would be furious at the gods, especially that goddess. ![]()
Castilliano wrote:
misotheism is hatred of gods. Not worshiping = hatred? ![]()
PossibleCabbage wrote:
That sounds like what church propaganda says about atheists. No, we are not nihilistic; we don't hate God(well not all of them), nor are we thoughtless. We are just independent-minded people who don't want arbitrary hierarchy imposed upon us. ![]()
Benjamin Tait wrote:
I feel like they have retconned ![]()
Maya Coleman wrote:
A Leshy plushie would be nice too. ![]()
I have a dog in my house. When he was a pup, we put a piece of wood to stop him from entering the house when no one was around to watch him. Now that he’s older, he could easily knock the piece of wood down, but instead, he just stands there, looking at it with those puppy eyes. This is called learned helplessness. It’s similar to Stockholm Syndrome—a survival mechanism that stops you from picking fights you’re unlikely to win, even if it’s not rational or moral. When people face overwhelming enemies or problems like slavery, tyranny, dictatorship, oligarchies, aging, or death, they often choose acceptance—or rather submission—because it’s easier to see the issue as something natural than to spend your whole life fighting a problem that feels larger than life. The worst part is that once you accept a problem, you lose the chance to work toward improving your situation. ![]()
moosher12 wrote: That makes sense, I will refrain then. I grew up in a household with a lot of older relatives, and unfortunately, four of them have passed away. My younger brother and a childhood friend also died—one from a disease and the other from brain cancer. I hate death, I'm working to become a medic so I can fight it, death sucks. ![]()
Unicore wrote:
I don’t see your point here. Saying that a wizard casting magic jar isn’t team play is like saying a rogue using stealth, deception, or performance isn’t team play. Each class has its strengths, and they aren’t required to be constantly working together. For example, a fighter could easily intimidate someone trying to interrogate the king, while a rogue could use deception to explain away any oddities. I just don’t see the validity of this argument. Regarding the use of dominate or similar spells, yes, with sufficient resources and time, you can achieve the same result, but I never claimed otherwise. It seems like you're struggling to grasp my point: it’s not about power or results; it’s about whether it can fulfill a fantasy. Pathfinder 1st Edition, with its numerous classes, archetypes, feats, and spells, can fulfill many fantasies. It’s not about the power of these fantasies or their outcomes; it’s about the fantasy itself. Sure, you can hire someone to perform a ritual, but that doesn’t relate to your experience as a wizard. Yes, you can have the GM re-flavor or homebrew content, but at that point, the rules lose their significance. The thrill of carefully searching among countless options to devise and execute a plan—like in heist movies—disappears. You’re no longer achieving results because of your system mastery or cleverness; you’re simply getting by because the GM was in a good mood and said, 'OK.' And why are you bringing up high-level creatures? I already told you I don’t mind if I have to be level 20 to possess a level 10 king. It’s not about trying to trivialize encounters or outshine party members. I feel like you’re missing the point. ![]()
Blue_frog wrote: Now that the wizard is nowhere near as powerful as he used to be, designers have to replace this lack of power with flavor. Take the remastered witch, for instance. Except for resentment (and even so), it's still pretty weak - but it oozes flavor, and has very unique mechanisms that make it attractive. In the opposite direction, we have the oracle, who got hugely buffed (apart from Battle - press F to pay respect - and life/ancestors), but lost a lot of its flavor. I have to slightly disagree because people tend to frame me as a power gamer who wants the wizard to be overpowered, but that simply isn't true. My problem lies in what the wizard can do, regardless of their relative power level compared to on-level monsters and other players. By that, I mean the following: a Pathfinder 1e (PF1) wizard could use magic jar to possess a king and impersonate him. A Pathfinder 2e (PF2) wizard cannot do this because not only has the spell been removed, but even the duration of possession effects has been severely reduced. To those who think I want the wizard to be more powerful, that's not the point. The wizard can't do it on the level they used to, and they can't do it even at level 20. It's not a matter of being ahead of the curve compared to other classes or on-level monsters; it's a matter of being able to fulfill the character fantasy AT ALL. People love to complain about spells failing or missing, focus spells, and the number of spells available, but my issue is that the wizard can no longer fulfill certain fantasies, period, regardless of their level. Yes, the power ceiling was lowered, but it feels like the system as a whole went from high-magic to mid-magic. Balance is important, but I feel depth and complexity were sacrificed without anything to replace them, and that is my issue. If it weren't for so many different nerfs, it wouldn't be as bad. It's the gutting of the class by a thousand cuts that is incredibly irritating. ![]()
moosher12 wrote: Alzheimer's and Dementia. That is a disease, and as someone whose parents suffered from it to the point of forgetting who I was, please don't lump it in with old age. While senescence is also a disease, even if most people think otherwise, these two conditions are far worse and certainly not a natural part of life. ![]()
Deriven Firelion wrote:
Wait you mean all this time he wasn't just a angel pretending to be a wizard but a real wizard, I guess I have misjudged him he is back to being one of my favorite wizards. ![]()
Sibelius Eos Owm wrote: I'm mainly here to point out what of the several lore errors being used as examples I can confirm, whether its fey not having souls or the idea that Pharasma cursed the gnomes with mortality, or even that atheists are forced to stay in the Boneyard against their will. That you turn these misunderstandings and objections into further evidence of your own arguments calls to question where exactly the goalposts went and how much you understand the examples you are using to prove your point, but other people can make those arguments. I only have time to read and respond to so many assertions and I have no desire to convince you out of a position you've deeply convinced yourself into. I'd merely like to make sure the facts the argument has been based on are presented accurately as possible so that readers can come to their own conclusions based on the actual evidence and not what was taken out of context, misunderstood, or brought in from a lore error 15 years ago when the writing of the lore was less closely managed and writers might introduce concepts that don't fit the Age of Lost Omens or its characters. Lore error is a weird term to use here, lore retconned because it was unpopular would be a better word specially since gnomes having souls or not or whether the whole race was affected or not is irrelevant for the argument being presented here, Sibelius Eos Owm wrote: or even that atheists are forced to stay in the Boneyard against their will. I would like to see your source for that because the wiki clearly contradicts that Graveyard of Souls (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. The rare souls that do find peace with their ultimate fate instead serve the graveyard as its custodians or guardians.1) But I will admit the Lady of the North Star but surprized me. ![]()
This is one of the two things that always miffed me about Tolkien: making Gandalf into an angel and turning orcs from what they were in Celtic mythology into what they are now. The original word 'orcneas,' derived from Orcus (originated from Horkos, a Greek god of oaths who punished those who broke them and sometimes associated with other Roman underworld deities like Pluto, Hades, and Dis Pater), means something like 'hell corpse,' 'hell-devil,' 'demon-corpses,' or 'corpse from Orcus.' It seems more like an undead demon than a green, buff elf. Then it became a pig-man, then a goblin, the huge buff-goblin, and now green, buff elves. then gain hollywood takes a lot of the blame too. ![]()
Trip.H wrote: Anubis' scales are the empty tool most known for fair an unbiased measurement. He takes the ~heart and weights it against a feather of truth; even if he has personal beef with a mortal for committing his anathema, that does not change how the scales fall. If you ask me, the best way to write about afterlife judgment in tabletop role-playing games is through karma. If your actions are bad, you go to a bad world, like a law of physics. The best way to handle gods is to have them be more like forces of nature, such as Gaia or Alaya from Fate Grand Order—something that is less of a person and more of a sentient force. But then again, that universe is a hell of its own with the timeline pruning and the whole system of the planets, so I wouldn't advocate for the story itself. Edit Note: I just noticed that Fate also has this issue with anti-immortality. I wonder how common this is in fiction writing. ![]()
Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:
If you constantly have to rewrite a character's lore to erase sins, like feeding atheist souls to Groetus, then that character is likely evil. ![]()
steelhead wrote:
If I'm correct, the idea is that the majority of shades/petitioners become part of the plane, as does any outsider that dies there. The plane is then corroded by the Maelstrom. Therefore, if stopping the souls means the corrosion worsens, the logical conclusion is that the souls which make up the plane are also being corroded, since the potentiality goes to the forge of creation to make new souls. Too many people are used to the idea of souls being eternal (myself included), so the concept of souls being turned back into quintessence is jarring. (Upon any outsider's destruction, its aligned quintessence—along with its compiled knowledge and beliefs—is absorbed into its home plane, or often into other planes if destroyed away from its home plane. Quintessence is perpetually disintegrated from the planes by the Maelstrom to become unaligned potentiality, at which point it is funneled to the Antipode and redirected to the Inner Planes. In Creation's Forge, it becomes part of the source matter of new souls.) from the wiki page on potentiality The issue is that the majority of shades will likely fade eventually, and with the constant war, most outsiders will also die. Therefore, the only beings in this world who are not doomed to have their souls consumed by the plane and converted into quintessence/potentiality are the gods. This is why people consider this a very convenient (and selfish) mindset for the gods to have. Since gods existed before mortals and the universe did not end, it’s not entirely unreasonable to believe they created mortals to be consumed by the antipode so they don't have to die. ![]()
Trip.H wrote: Instead, petitioners are claimed as chattel by Pharasma, and then she hands each soul to a god / plane of her choosing. This... Imagine if it turns out she is secretly the final boss of pathfinder (if there is such thing as a final boss in a ttrpg) i doubt it would be the case but it a cool scenario to consider. ![]()
Trip.H wrote: This is how mortals in Golarion's cosmos can accidentally end up existing for the sake being harvested/assimilated/consumed by the gods without their consent. Such a accurate description of the issue I have with the setting , I just wish the atheists would put a little bit more of a fight than dying and accepting your fate. ![]()
PossibleCabbage wrote:
You are comparing souls with eggs and livestock? as if having your souls turned into planar mortar is some small favor? ![]()
PossibleCabbage wrote: The interesting thing about Rahadoum is that it is a mix of that kind of atheist, and the misotheistic kind. People in Rahadoum disagree with each other about a great number of things, so why not this? Some Rahadoumi folks will believe that celebrating the Gods because they are powerful is ridiculous, but they would also believe that objecting to Pharasma's judgement is ridiculous because she is very powerful. You just treat the experience like "the dragon has asked you to relocate your chickens, because the coop you have built is an annoyance to the dragon" you understand that this is something you should just go along with, since you have a good idea what the alternative is like and it's worse. if the dragon was threatening the farmer adventurers would think of it as a monster and slay it, and some of these gods have stats: Conqueror Worm, Green Man, Avatar of the Lantern King, Manifestation Of Dahak, Treerazer, if they can bleed... ![]()
Castilliano wrote:
Asmodeus, Cthulhu, the Conqueror Worm, the Rough Beast, Dahak, and the Lantern King—all of them are gods or god-adjacent entities. However, that doesn't mean one should worship them or allow them to have their way. I don't understand why some people find it so difficult to extend the same logic to other deities. In Pathfinder, a god represents a level of power; it is not akin to the Christian God, who is described as an infallible, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent being. ![]()
James Jacobs wrote:
Have you considered creating a faction to represent these people? Because, if you ask me, the problem isn't so much Pharasma herself, but the fact that every alternative to her is evil—like the asura, the undead, or the sahkil. Maybe if there were a neutral or chaotic neutral faction to represent people who feel this way, others would side with them and champion their cause, much like how some people play the Bellflower Network. ![]()
Claxon wrote:
It's more like the president has the codes to turn off your pacemaker, and you happen to be a member of the opposition party—she hates necromancy, remember? So, the fear that your clone may be shut down because "it's your time" has some legitimacy if you are, in fact, a necromancer. ![]()
vyshan wrote:
I disagree that the Asura have a tendency to blame the victims, namely the mortals, for the sins of their creators. I would simply sit there and tell them the truth about what their gods have done and be there when their gods inevitably screw them over. Eventually, they would see the light and choose to walk my path of misotheism and mortal liberation of their own free will. Claxon wrote: But the people in the thread railing against Pharasma feel like they're railing against the fact that death exist, including death of the soul, and the cycle of souls in general. It's almost as if you are railing against the mere idea that death might not be inevitable in a game. Why do we need to go out of our way to bring fatalism into a fictional world? Why add things like 'clone' and 'raise dead' just to have a deity shut it down? ![]()
PossibleCabbage wrote:
In real life, we fought against the monarchy, and now we are fighting against the oligarchy. It’s human nature to hate tyranny, so why fight against the gods as well? If people were to adopt a nihilistic view of life, then nobody would go to war, since what happens after they are dead would be considered irrelevant. ![]()
QuidEst wrote:
It’s also a significant theme to explore the opposite, such as the peaches of immortality, ambrosia, the fountain of youth, the golden apples, the herb of Gilgamesh, the philosopher's stone, and the Holy Grail. My question is: why does that specific element have to be realistic? The entire game contains absurdities, so why not make death absurd as well? The choice to base the world on death and a cycle of souls was a design decision that I honestly don’t appreciate. It feels akin to creating a universe that operates on the cries of infant orphans, surely there were better options. ![]()
PossibleCabbage wrote:
The issue is that, unlike other gods, you will always meet Pharasma at the end of your life, and the fact that Rahadoum is aware of their bleak prospects in the afterlife highlights my point. How can one say she is hands-off when she is the one who decides the fate of your soul? You can run from a tyrant king and avoid Asmodeus like the plague by never getting close to a contract, but you cannot avoid Pharasma. But to address your point about the world being ruled by immortals, I think we might be getting closer to that world than you realize. That said, I would absolutely love to play in a world full of undead; I have even been thinking of writing one myself. It's sad how this theme is so underexplored. ![]()
Ryangwy wrote:
That concept doesn't quite work because the witch class relies on a patron. While witches certainly learn and grow, they can't really claim the identity of being self-made and beholden to no one. This is because their power and identity are intrinsically tied to their patron; the classic archetype involves a deal with a devil, tutelage from a fey creature, or a similar arrangement. This doesn't conflict with the wizard class. However, since I was primarily discussing the core classes of Pathfinder 1st Edition, one could argue that later additions like the arcanist or alchemist occupy some of that 'self-made magic user' identity. ![]()
Squiggit wrote:
It did have an identity. Of the 11 core classes in Pathfinder 1st Edition, four were full casters. The cleric and druid relied on external forces for their power. The sorcerer and wizard were their own source of magic: A sorcerer's magic is inherent, a birthright. The wizard, on the other hand, gains power through diligent study. While all classes level equally, the wizard distinguished themselves as the only caster who didn't need external intervention or inherent luck to gain power. The wizard's niche was to be a truly self-made caster, beholden to no one. ![]()
Agonarchy wrote:
I will praise that choice, alignment was always a bad system and the game will be better without it, no system will ever be able to fit all of the complexities of morality into 9 squares. ![]()
Tactical Drongo wrote:
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. ![]()
PossibleCabbage wrote:
I'm not arguing about this from a lore perspective, but from a design perspective. Creating gods or outsiders like Pharasma, the Mantis God, and axiomites to control player behavior is a design decision that I oppose. These characters were clearly created to enforce the will of the writer: 'I don't like undead? Here's Pharasma.' 'I don't like players seeking godhood? Here's the Mantis.' And so on—'I don't like [something else]? Here are the inevitables. From a design perspective, I dislike how these characters force players to behave in certain ways by serving as counter-characters designed to punish them. This is why, in every game I GM, one of my first actions is to have all these characters mysteriously disappear because I'm opposed to this design choice. ![]()
Powers128 wrote: The dissolution of all reality I think. Eventually anyways. The planes are made of soul stuff and without order to them, they'll fall to the maelstrom. I'm really not a fan of making an entire cosmology spin around a single character. This tends to happen with Mary Sues or writer's pet characters, and especially in an RPG, there should be no deity above all others. ![]()
PossibleCabbage wrote:
That is a strange definition of respect. If she genuinely respects these souls, then she should allow them to return home. ![]()
Witch of Miracles wrote:
So, it's another example of white rooming that is impractical in reality. I'm wondering how the people bringing this up missed this—did their GM just give them tons of scrolls? That could be another example of table variance or house rules masking the negative aspects of the wizard class. This is the issue with the 'death by a thousand cuts' approach to nerfing. When you nerf things that synergize together with many small changes, not only is it impossible to predict how far the synergy will go, but if any of these small nerfs fail, they can reduce the effect of the nerf and mask its impact from players and developers. ![]()
Deriven Firelion wrote:
This is a bit of a conspiracy theory, but I think it's possible that people who disliked the 'quadratic wizard' from Pathfinder 1 might have chosen the "very satisfied" option with the current wizard, and Paizo may have misinterpreted this as wizard players being happy. This could explain why satisfaction is supposedly high. If I recall correctly, in one of these surveys or something similar, the wizard showed the most disparity between feedback—a disparity that wasn't as present in other classes. This was only seen in classes that were considered weak at the time, such as the witch or alchemist, and even then it was less pronounced. It's possible that this was indeed the case. ![]()
NorrKnekten wrote:
Even the best democracies rarely achieve 100% consensus, but I believe we can strive for at least 51% agreement if we focus our efforts. While only the developers can determine whether our feedback makes a difference, to have any hope of influencing change, we must assume it does. Otherwise, we'd be taking a self-defeating stance. I firmly believe that those of us who can reach a consensus should do so because it addresses a common criticism often raised by opposing viewpoints. ![]()
Old_Man_Robot wrote:
Man, we finally got even some of the more hardcore users to admit that there is something wrong with the class (because, with multiple threads and so many posts, it's undeniable). However, it's sad that we still can't find a consensus. We need a solid consensus on what is wrong with the wizard if we ever hope for it to be fixed. ![]()
I will never understand why there are always people so incredibly committed to arguing that the wizard is fine. I can understand why others want the class to be improved because they feel it is weak, but I can't grasp the mindset of those who vehemently defend the class as it is. Are they afraid that the wizard will revert to its state in Pathfinder 1? That seems very unlikely, considering the effort its taking to even get the developers to acknowledge that there is anything wrong with the class. There is no way they will make it broken again, so you people can relax. Like does anyone really honestly think there is any real chance that if they buff the wizard they would go that far? ![]()
Deriven Firelion wrote: I can't prove it, but my feeling is the wizard has some kind of mandate at Paizo to make sure it doesn't become what it was in PF1 to the point almost no quality improvements and complete class changes occur to make it better for PF2 to the point it is on par with other caster classes, especially all the 8 hit point casters who received quality feats and class features. This! This right here. I'm sure there is something happening behind the scenes because it would make sense if it were one thing or another. However, the way all these defects synergize together to make the wizard class as bad as it is doesn't happen naturally. This "death by a thousand cuts" suggests that everyone was worried about making the class overpowered, and they each implemented little nerfs that individually would be acceptable but, together, become class-crippling. Perhaps there was a team meeting where their boss told them "we need to nerf the wizard", and they overdid it.
|