Ramanujan's page

I enjoyed the first 90%, but I didn’t get the ending.

I’m guessing the ability use at the end is a reference to something I’m not familiar with?
Did I miss it being foreshadowed in the text?

In fairness, some locations are much lighter than others -- I don't think we have yet had a 2e book (adventure path or lost omens) that has especially touched on Golarion's darkest places.

I really like that one of the iconics is a child.
Children are often forgotten when people talk about representation.

And even more so than most other kinds of games, RPGs should provide characters that people can identify with - and children often play them.

Maybe I'm being blind, but I don't actually see mention of when PaizoCon is, in this article??

I am very interested in this product - sad to hear it has been delayed!

Ramanujan wrote:

I have chapters 1 through 10, and as of today, chapter 12. But unfortunately no chapter 11.

...

My offer to send missing chapters to others still stands, just send me a PM with your email and the number of the chapter you don't have.

Thank you - sending a PM now!

AnimatedPaper wrote:

Just download another browser for your iPad. I use both chrome and safari

No.

I just got it to work on my iPhone by going to Settings > Safari > Advanced > Website Data > Search for Paizo, and delete the Paizo.com data.

I have chapters 1 through 10, and as of today, chapter 12. But unfortunately no chapter 11.

I've checked my junk and deleted folders, but haven't been able to find it.

Also, today I wasn't able to sign into the website using Safari - both on my phone and on my mac, despite numerous attempts and reseting my password. I was however able to sign in using Chrome on my mac (hence being able to post this).

has anyone found a storage solution to organize these? Love that they come with divider tabs but I haven't found a storage box tall/wide/long enough for these sets.

Storage solutions in general would be appreciated. For these, but also Bestiary cards, Pawns etc...

I would suggest magus cantrips as a solution.

The magus wants to spell strike on every attack, cantrips are balanced against martials partly by casters having higher level slots.

Magus has some of those, but not as many. So therefore giving the magus more powerful cantrips could be a solution - and one that plays into their specialism, and one that helps make them feel more special.

In fairness - this is the playtest, and it is the Eidolon part that needs testing most from the Summoner. It is perhaps unsurprising then that the playtest focuses in on it.

It is still a good point to raise though, and to make sure they remember!

Ramanujan wrote:

That is a net gain ... but a seriously tiny one, and getting the probability that high requires being prepared to spend all your actions for two rounds attempting to land the spell (though obviously you'd stop early if you succeeded on the first try).

---
I started writing this thinking Spell Strike seemed pretty good. I ended up persuading myself it isn't.

And that's even with assuming a save spell and ignoring missing altogether (which granted across 2 turns isn't all that high, but still.)

No, I factored in missing altogether - I included it as part of the spell critically failing/no effect. I did assume a spell save though (Though my language was always from the player's perspective; e.g. I talk about the spell critically failing, rather than the target critically succeeding their saving throw.)

If you crit, great - your spell gets an effective +10 to hit (except it is actually slightly better than that, as it can undo incapacitation, but that won't happen often). Still +10 is an insane bonus.

If you hit, that sucks. You get +0 to hit with the spell, which is what you would have gotten when casting it anyway.

If you miss, you do not lose the spell, and on the next turn, you can try again. In other words, you have another shot at getting the insane +10 to hit.
---

One relevant question is, is having a second chance of getting +10 to hit, better than rolling at +0?

Some spells are worse than twice as good on a crit (e.g. Shocking Grasp) while many others are more than twice as good (e.g. Weapon Storm).

If the strike hits on a 9+, then it had a 50% chance of getting a normal hit (not criting), or a 25% chance with a -5 MAP penalty. That means across up to four possible attacks over two turns (i.e. with map at -0, -0, -5, -10), we have a *74.52% chance of casting the spell at +0, and a **15.32% chance of casting the spell at +10, and an 10.16% chance of not casting it at all.

If we ignore the chance of not casting the spell at all, then on average this works out as a +1.532 bonus to one spell (albeit with high variation).

Lets assume we are casting a spell with a basic save, so not casting the spell at all is the same as rolling a critical failure, which we can approximate to a -22 modifier on the spell - i.e. the minimum amount that guarantees a spell that would have otherwise hit on a 9 is a failure on a natural 20, and a critical failure on everything else.

Using that short hand for the sake of easy maths, this means we have an average penalty to the roll of -2.2 (albeit with very high variation), which when combined with the +1.532 bonus, is a reduction to your spell roll on average.

However, looking at it from another perspective; due to the way natural 1s and 20s work, if we land the spell on a 9, then we go from a 5% chance of crit failure (or no effect), when casting the spell normally to a †13.886% chance of critical failure/not casting it at all when using spell strike.
While the chance of critically hitting goes from 10% when casting normally to ††19.192% chance of critically hitting when using spell strike. i.e. the chance of critical failure/no effect increases by 8.885%, while the chance of critically hitting increases by 9.192%.

That is a net gain ... but a seriously tiny one, and getting the probability that high requires being prepared to spend all your actions for two rounds attempting to land the spell (though obviously you'd stop early if you succeeded on the first try).

---
I started writing this thinking Spell Strike seemed pretty good. I ended up persuading myself it isn't.

---

*50%+(40%*50%)+(40%*40%*25%)+(40%*40%*65%*5%) = 74.52%
** 50%+(40%*50%)+(40%*40%*25%)+(40%*40%*65%*5%) = 15.32%
†10.16%+74.52%*5% = 13.886%
††10.16%+74.52%*5% = 19.192%

In PF1 the Magus had two key abilities; Spell Strike and Spell Combat.

Spell Combat was essentially two weapon fighting with a spell in one hand and a weapon in the other.

In PF2, two weapon combat looks like the feats; Twin Takedown, Double Slice, or Twin Feint, etc...

I'd suggest something like the following:

Spell Combat [Two actions]
Requirement: You are wielding a weapon in one hand, and have the other hand free.
Strike with a weapon in one hand, then cast a one or two action spell with your other hand. The spell must include the target of the strike as one of its targets. Combine all damage dealt for the purpose of its resistances and weaknesses. Apply your multiple attack penalty normally.

This is in-line with those feats, particularly the Ranger's Twin Takedown. It saves you one action, and combines damage resistance.

I don't think I understand how Synthesis works, and what the pros and cons would be. Can someone explain it to me?

You seem to loose your ability to cast spells, use Act Together (Which is your main source of action efficiency), and probably other things, in exchange for loosing your disadvantage on area-of-effect spells that would have hit both of you. ... and very little else?

Reading the contents of a sealed letter, without leaving any marks that could be detected?

Castilliano wrote:

As intriguing as Geb & Nex are, how does one make such an AP about the heroes rather than Geb or Nex (the entities)?

Party takes them both down? What are the unknown factors to make things interesting?

Geb is especially awkward because if the party disturbs the balance, they may unleash undead that are pretty quiescent as issues stand. Or maybe the Whispering Way is already trying to do that, seeing a second undead uprising as good for their business.

Not every Adventure Path has to be about heroes. And not all adventure paths that aren't about heroes have to be evil Adventure Paths.

I really want a PF2 game about being Con Artists. Ala Lies of Locke Lamora.

I guess my issue with the magic school AP is "what if someone just wants to play a martial class"?

You could give everyone a choice between a free Wizard Archetype, and a Free Druid Archetype?

Or - something more specific to the Magaambya (although those have to be some of the more complex archetypes available right now).

---

I also would really like a game based out of the University.

A witch is trained by their familiar. To use TVTropes, this is the Mentor Mascot (1) Trope, except with some bigger power behind the Mentor Mascot.

A summoner generally either learns with or trains their Eidolon. This is nearer a pokemon trainer with only one pokemon, or maybe even the Dividual (2), or The Adventure Duo (3). If you want to play the Hyper-Competent Sidekick (4) in PF2, this is the only class that has a change of coming anywhere even close to it - though we will have to wait and see if the PF2 version goes so far as that.

Witch
1) Mentor Mascot (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MentorMascot)

Summoner
2) The Dividual (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheDividual)
3) Adventure Duo (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AdventureDuo)
4) Hyper-Competent Sidekick (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HypercompetentSidekick)

Let's see... ancestries that could fill the role of the "big guy" with a bit more work (I.e. heritages and feats that emphasize their bigness) or porting over from PF1.

1. Orc. "Many orcs top 7 feet in height"

2. Lizardfolk. "The average lizardfolk stands 6 to 7 feet tall, but grows throughout their lifetime, gaining strength and size with age." (Woah, that heritage/feat writes itself. Ancient Lizardfolk.)

3. Human. Could easily be a heritage for really tall folk.

4. Ghoran. A groot type look would be prettyy sweet.

5. Kasatha. "The average kasatha is 6 to 7 feet tall."

6. Changelings. The annis hag is large, maybe their daughters could be on the tall side.

7. Androids. They could just be built big.

I'd add Nagaji to the list; using the random hight and weight rules from PF1 they are on average a foot taller than humans.

Talking of Psychic classes I really want a non-medium Fiend Keeper.

I loved the Fiend Keeper's flavour. But medium made zero sense as the chassis; 'I'm keeping a demon bound ... but also swapping it out for a different demon each morning'.

Basically I want to play Penric-esque characters (as per the novels by Lois McMaster Bujold), though not necessarily the spell casting part - that isn't what is important about the character for me.

#4 is how I usually run games.
Though I do feel what you call 'some built in GM permissions' is what the game assumes is standard - one of my first players was from the Mwangi, but a member of the Pathfinder lodge there - not giving them access to the Pathfinder Agent Dedication would in my opinion, be an odd choice (despite that not giving access strictly speaking).
When a player comes to me with a concept/background they get 'permission' for anything uncommon that fit that theme particularly well. Rare stuff might require a discussion/active pursuit in game, but I still don't like being stingy.

#5 is a bit beyond my comfort level right now. Maybe in the future.

You'll likely get pretty close with oreads which could come in a future product.

To my surprise, according to PF1 rules, Oreads are actually a pretty short race, ranging from 4ft to 5ft.

Obviously as James Jacobs has just pointed out, those rules don't apply here. Also, Oreads would probably be a versatile heritage when they eventually do get to PF2.

To Ironhammer33

Given that Paizo cannot use the name Goliath, nor copy the rules text for them (which wouldn't make sense, as the games work differently), what is it about Goliaths that you particularly like?

i.e. what is it, that for you, would make a new species fill the same niche?

Similarly, what is it about the class that you mentioned (Radiant Servant of Pelor/Sarenrae), which I have never heard of before, that you like and want in Pathfinder? What would make a completely new class fill that same niche for you?

PossibleCabbage wrote:

If a 3'8" dwarf woman and a 6'6" human man can both be medium creatures, I don't know why something like an 8' hypothetical ancestry couldn't be medium too.

They could certainly be Medium, but they'd be treated as Medium, not Large, and wouldn't gain the advantages of that size category.

I never looked too much into how goliaths worked in 3.5 D&D, but isn't that one of the whole points of the ancestry? That it's a Large-sized PC option?

Of course, none of this changes the fact that they're not open content and thus we can't use them as a rules element in the same way WotC does.

Golaiths are medium creatures in 5e at least;

Quote:
'Goliaths are between 7 and 8 feet tall and weigh between 280 and 340 pounds. Your size is Medium.'

Some of their abilities relate to their larger-than-usual size (but still medium), e.g.:
'You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift.'

As a reminder, given the discussion about this being the last Bestiary, we do at the very least know that Kingmaker is coming with its own Bestiary.

I was expecting to find solutions to the issue with the core rule book in that the best/sometimes only way of increasing AC was to take the Champion dedication, which has very specific thematic consequences or constraints. The same could be said of the Fighter and weapons, but the theme of a Fighter is very simply and directly 'weapon master', so the same thematic issues don't occur.

I like the APG - and am still very glad to have it, but for me this is probably the single biggest disappointment/hope dashed.

I was also expecting uses/improvements/progressions to the rather odd situation with the general feats weapon training and armour training. Or something at least that explained/clarified their existence as not-traps.

Edit: Just re-looked at Champion. Sentinel does cover the same functions as Champion, so that complaint is addressed - I apologise. But there is still no way to gain even one step better than what your base class gives you.

Being able to craft thieves' picks in a prison without tools or books has obvious potential.

No, it's understood they get human, elf, or half-elf feats. Seems like choices are just very limited because the few that are available at 9th may have a prerequisite, which if you don't have, makes it one choice or nothing.

I did see that half-elf gets an advantage on Multitalented which is nice. Just wish there were a few more options.

You can also take lower level feats and grab those prerequisites.

And as a third choice, you can retrain your previous choices in order to swap those old choices into the prerequisites.

Building a postal network, could be fairly involved - a little like building a kingdom, but a lot more geographically diverse.

I really quite like this idea.

Obviously Terry Pratchet's Going Postal could serve good source inspiration.

I like the first two a *lot* more than the final two. But picking between the first two in order to vote? ... not easy.

Glad the voting method allows more nuance than just picking your favourite!

Lanathar wrote:

Opens the door for the next summer release to be an Advanced Class Guide with:

- 4+ new classes
- class archetypes
- more “standard” archetypes
- more class options/pathways for each class

It would make the most sense given the Ancestry book next winter

I personally don't think we'll be getting 4 classes next year, I figure they'll slow down after the APG. They consider the APG to be one of the core books everyone who wants to play PF2 should own, it makes sense for them to pack it with more content than future books might.

What we know from the panel is that they will move away from themeless rule books in the style of APG, Ultimate Magic and Ultimate Combat. Instead they want to do more stuff like Occult Adventures - something half way between the Core Rule books and the Lost Omens World Guides.

They've also often talked about having to rush to catch up with PF1, and that classes drive book sales more than anything else. I think we can be confident in expecting a class playtest towards the end of this year.
In fact I would not be particularly surprised to see more than four classes slated for it.

Deadmanwalking wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

Based on the other thread, I now want a Large snake-like ancestry. Maybe a heritage for Nagaji?

Or just nagas. Those are both Large and basically snakes, and we've got one as a Pathfinder Tales protagonist, so...

Yeah I rather have a Naga ancestry than Nagaji.

I would very much agree with this.

I'd also rather have Naga ancestry than anything else I'm aware of, including Anadi. Not counting announced races such as Sprites, Tieflings, Duskwalker etc...

That still makes me hope chances for other snek ancestries are plausible ;D

Also, Droon IS in Garund. And there isn't really evidence of ancient lizardfolk ruins in Avistan for whatever reason(whether its because Paizo writers used Iruxi as "swamp dwelling LN tribal creatures" while ignoring all the "used to be big deal in old days" lore or because Avistan didn't have as huge Iruxi presence in past)

Ah, well, I will have to retcon my comment to being 'south west of the Mwangi expanse' then.

Unless that is also where Droon is. In which case the lore in those two books makes zero sense.

So... in hopes of shifting this thread's topic to a more positive light, I'd love it if folks talk about what they DO want in a snake-themed player ancestry. Not serpentfolk. Not nagaji. I want to know what it is about snake-themed PC ancestries folks want. Is it a sleek, serpentine body for your PC, perhaps one with no legs or even no arms? Is it the ability to use a poison bite? A forked tongue that grants scent? Links to real-world snakes? Or is it merely the desire to play a member of an ancestry against type thematically—the same sort of thing that's attractive about playing a good drow or a redeemed demon or the like?

After reading the Pathfinder Tales Pirate series, Celeste was really pretty cool.

Perhaps compensating the potential range of a modified innate mage hand with low movement speed (and vice versa)?

Paradozen wrote:

lemeres wrote:

They descend from ancient empires that once held a large power over the world, but have since faced decline. That history gives them perspectives and secrets that are distinct from the human cultures in power today.

Is the empire of Droon in decline? I got the impression that the Iruxi empire was still going strong but simply doesn't care about the Inner Sea region so we don't get a lot of details about it

Nope; Droon is going strong.

As a side note, while Droon may be going strong, there are at least two Pathfinder Tales novels that deal with Lizardfolk from ancient empires that no longer exist.

In fact the Pathfinder Tales books are the only place I've encountered Pathfinder Lizardfolk (outside of Oblivion Oath) - and I remember thinking they sounded awesome and wanting to play them.

So it may not be accurate world wide, but I certainly had a very strong impression that Lizardfolk were once a very long time ago part of a large and powerful empire - two novels told me that was the case.

This discussion has made me suspect that the history in those books was entirely Garrund centric, which is fine, though I am feeling slight whiplash from the change in my understanding.

I wish to add my voice to those asking for Anadi!

Exocist wrote:

Probably fine, gonna make Chill Touch cry in a corner though. Maybe if it was Arcane/Primal?

To be fair, I'm not sure what they were doing giving the melee range cantrip the same damage as the 30/60/120 foot ones without anything else really going for it (it even provokes!).

Though even with that said, Chill Touch also has some advantages compared to this hypothetical cantrip: half damage on a successful save, double damage + enfeeble on a crit and it's not an attack so it doesn't incur MAP. Those drag its average damage output closer than it initially appears, especially at low levels.

Chill Touch is the only Fort save cantrip.

Targeting the right defence (AC, Reflex, Will or Fort) is really useful in PF2, and I would advise most players to take at least two offensive cantrips that target different defences.
Even so, it may still not make the cut; every class has at least three offensive cantrips. Though I'd note that Divine Lance and Telekinetic Projectile both target AC, which can be covered by strikes for some builds.

TriOmegaZero wrote:

that fallacy about experts being unable to recall what it is like to be a neophyte?

I was a complete neophyte with emulators when I tried out bluestacks. As such, I recall it quite well thank you. it's LITERALLY skimming through a bit on their site, hitting download, running the program, typing 'pathbuilder' into the integrated googleplay and hitting install. This is ALL with never using an emulator or googleplay before.

TriOmegaZero wrote:

I mean, it was literally a button front and center on the screen and he didn’t know how to press it.

That's an issue with general perception and not tech know how... But I understand the point: I've had issues telling someone to 'ctrl-alt-delete' over the phone and getting them to understand it was holding those all down and not one after the other... But, IMO, that was because she wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed and not technical issue.

For what it is worth, I am not a neophyte with emulators, and that fact resulted in my not trying Blue Stacks until reading your argument that it was easy. I've spent some pretty unpleasant time wasted trying to get emulators working in the past.

I will however also add that getting BlueStacks to run on my Mac was slightly harder than what you have described here - I had to change to an admin account (Giving an Admin Authorisation was apparently insufficient), and give the emulator a few permissions in my mac's settings - one of which I had to look up instructions on ... even so that still makes it infinitely easier than some of my previous experiences with emulators.

This looks like it might be more useful than the NPC codex box... Some of those are really quite weird or particular.

Does the art’s coloured border link to a theme?

I was slightly puzzled by the preview cards. But I guess the cards need to work in a wide range of places?

That was awesome.

And genuinely scary.
I also would be leaving immediately.

I actually woke in the middle of the night, thinking about it, after reading that just before going to bed. The idea didn’t just disturb a fictional character’s sleep.

I seem unable to print this. Is there a way to get it to print legibly? ... ideally without using too much ink.

Specifically I just get a page of solid brown when I try to print.

I'd like Anadi!

Ah, I forgot to mention that I was also replacing the requirements with ‘GM said you can take it’.

But I guess that factors into how powerful it is.

She is level 2, and has in effect, no other special access from her backstory/background/etc...

I’d probably also homebrew a couple of higher level feats to add to the dedication, but in the short term their theoretical existence only impact is in potentially raising the damage bonus at higher levels.

One of my players is a storm Druid with a backstory of being trained by Druidic assassins, or at least assassins who included a number of druids.

A reflavoured version of The red mantis assassin archetype looks nearly perfect for the player (they also like it). However there is one major aspect to the dedication feat that is rather useless: The sawtooth sabre weapon proficiency it grants.

As a result, I was wondering if people thought replacing that part of the dedication with the following would be balanced:

When dealing damage with a spell, if at least one of the targets is flat footed, then once per spell you may deal 1 additional precision damage per Assassin feat to one of those targets.

This is awesome. Thank you.

The Gleeful Grognard wrote:

Blast spells have been nerfed in damage less than they may seem to be. Since DC scales with the caster the reliability of the damage is actually better than with many 1e spells that scaled with caster level.

The burst potential is arguably lower for some even with crits accounted for, but the average tends towards being higher.

The HP values scale faster in PF2e sure, but that kinda effects everyone including martials.

It's been a while for me, but did spells count as the level you prepared them at in PF1? If so, a level 5 fireball prepared by a level 10 PF1 or PF2 wizard would do 10d6, and the DC would scale in both.

Comparing the first creature of level 10 I saw in the PF1 bestiary, the Brachiosaurus has 171 hp, while the Brontosaurus from PF2 has 220 hp.

Of course, you're right that the scaling affects both martials and casters, but do martials scale their damage better in PF2? Striking being a die, instead of +1 to damage, might suggest that they do, but I really don't remember the numbers from all kinds of bonuses in PF1.

The point being, if the answer to both questions is yes, then casters scale roughly the same as they did in PF1, while martials scale better, and monster hp scales better, so effectively, blasting is nerfed.

If either isn't true, then disregard this :)

The answer to your first question isn’t a simple yes or no, as there are two components to fireball damage. The damage dice and the dc.

In PF1 the damage dice scaled with character level, even if you cast the fireball with a level 3 slot. But the DC didn’t scale.

The reverse is true of PF2. The damage dice only increase if you prepare it in a higher slot, but the dc increases with character level, regardless of the slot you use.

I would be a fan of inspiration points. As a mechanic it's different from what other classes do, and it feels very "investigator" in the sense that you are slowly building up your case bit by bit and striking when the time is right.

I like this!

Will there be a pdf version that will include all 4 combined into a single map?

As it stands we have 2 tank characters and 2 magic Users. lol!

I used Pathbuilder to plug in information on Malinors' character and it worked great. I was able to find the one error that he had which was minor and that's what I'm going to use to track PCs. It was a very cheap app on my chromebook and it looks great with 2 different sheet layouts. one looks just like a professional sheet the other is a stat block layout.