Ravingdork's page

Natural attacks are not weapons, and so can never be selected as a weapon implement (short of changing the rules with a house rule).

It seems the psychic didn't even get minor changes, just nerfs.

Makes sense to me. Everyone and their grandmother was dipping psychic. That's a red flag for Paizo.

Hey Everyone, I just got confirmation for CS, those who do have purchased DA prior will get their free PDF Remaster update on the release date, Feb 4th. Buf you will need to skip the physical product on your subscription page.

Not on Jan. 20 as previously reported? :(

Let's hope there's deeper stuff

Indeed!

Keep in mind that Nocticula, despite being called the Redeemer Queen, is not a goddess of redemption.

LOLWUT?

Everything I've ever read about her seems to read as though she is a goddess of redemption.

Though that does explain why I wasn't permitted to take her as a patron deity of my Redeemer champion (alignment conflicts back in the day).

Ghouls can also burrow through some crazy stuff.

SuperParkourio wrote:

Better yet, have the worm tunnel a city for years, causing the ground to collapse and destroy the entire city "Lion King 1 1/2" style.

That does actually seem technically feasible with enough knowledge and understanding of ground foundations. The trick would be tunnelling out just enough so that nothing collapses, until you get the whole city's foundation in the condition you want, and then you take out a few key pieces and watch everything fall.

Of course, such a feat requires way more engineering knowledge than even average intelligent species are capable of doing on their own.

This is actually something I have done, in in-game months, as a player.

Different strokes for different folks I suppose.

Most every GM I know would run a cave worm lethally like that (with either sky spitting or with burying).

I don't much understand why many of you wouldn't expect that more often than not.

It's been hinted repeatedly that bone magic is a big deal for [Iruxi].

Isn't that also the case for Kholo?

I realize new book opens up a lot of opportunities but I'm encouraging people to please temper their expectations a bit. Don't get excited for the Summoner to be completely fixed and revamped or for the Magus to have a whole bunch of new ideas that revitalize its gameplay loop.

We've had this happen enough with other remaster books I think people should just expect the classes to have the minimum amount of changes to correct obvious errors, and if we get anymore than that it'll be pretty cool.

As long as the classes don't get the wizard school or battle oracle treatment, I'm all for it. Everything else is bonus!

Perpdepog wrote:

We've definitely got enough aquatic ancestries to make a go of it; just add water.

And ships please.

And aquatic combat rules that don't nerf so many classes into absolute oblivion.

The only thing I dread more than running water combats is playing in water combats.

My PFS summoner relies heavily on spells like pillar of water and wall of water to turn every battlefield into an aquatic one. He then sicks his aquatic eidolon against his floundering foes.

It's an excellent debuff, especially in narrow corridors and small rooms.

All the GMs hate it. And some players too.

I can't wait to see how Impossible Magic improves the summoner.

If you want to only be halfway awful as a GM (such as in a gritty campaign intended to be difficult), limit it to one range increment of altitude, but go the full range laterally.

They're essentially out of the fight, but unlikely to be killed outright.

But actually that does give an idea for a more fair way to use the non targeting regurgitate. Have the worm after having swallowed a PC digg down 80ft then spit the PC up the tunnel.

It actually could be fun moment instead of a purely punitive one.
The PC could try to grab the edge or another PC could use a reaction to help grab them before they fall back down. That would be a fun moment.

"By the gods, it spit me out!"

"No it didn't."

"What?"

"Well, it was burrowing, you see...and it couldn't turn around in the narrow confines of its tunnel."

"Wait. You mean...?"

"Yes, I' m afraid so..."

*Druid casts hydraulic torrent.*

Cave worms are subterranean creatures with a -5 int.

They probably don't think about how far up they can regurgitate a PC.

Perhaps not, but instinctually spitting their food into their very deep burrow seems rather fitting.

Speaking as someone that was in the middle of that fiasco, Tridus is absolutely correct about everything regarding the incident.

Then instead of taking the trivially easy fix, the PFS person who responded to it was actively disdainful of the concerns people had about it instead.

It was easily one of the most jarring moves I've ever seen from anyone at Paizo.

I haven't been able to get my friends back to the table since.

It doesn't matter how good your game is if you have representatives in your company that treat your customer base like excrement.

I would likely rule that the damage is applied when the creature stops moving, and that the damage per square accumulates and then you apply weakness/resistance once against that group of damage.

Not as great for resistance, but also not as awful for weakness.

That's likely how I'd run it as well.

I'm thinking of creating a high level spell that freezes or compresses time, allowing the caster and a chosen target within range to converse with impunity. I hope to get some ideas and suggestions on how best to implement such a spell.

Some thoughts:
- Target gets a will save to negate, but is aware of the spell's effects and may voluntarily accept a failure result.
- Caster and target actions will be extraordinarily limited during the apparant duration, such as only being able to take purely mental actions and verbal actions. Absolutely no physical actions, spellcasting, manipulating the environment, or harmful actions can be taken while the spell is in effect.
- The spell could be entirely mental, plunging caster's and target's minds into a psychic black void completely cut off from the outside world. Sort of like Stranger Things.
- The spell is instantaneous to outside observers, but will have an apparent duration of no less than 10 minutes to those effected, after which the duration can be extended indefinitely so long as all parties wish to keep it going. Targets cannot prematurely end the effect during the initial duration unless they succeeded on their initial save and chose to be effected by the spell's effects. The caster can end the spwll's effect at any time.
- Higher spell ranks allow the caster to attempt pulling more people in, though the target size remains small (2-5 additional targets I'm thinking). Furthermore, a higher rank might allow the caster to eject participant(s) from the spell effect prematurely.
- Leaning towards 8th or 9th rank, with 10th rank allowing more targets.

What do you think? How might such a spell potentially be abused?

My guess is we'll see a new magic-centric book that contains the Runesmith, the Necromancer, and a remastered Magus and Summoner, plus some new magic stuff (and unfortunately, probably a lot of reprints of Secrets of Magic spells and other things).

I'd actually be pretty excited to see that.

Why would an update prevent access in this day and age?

I was a web developer 15 years ago and even back then there were simple methods to push site updates with 0 front end downtime.

What the heck are these youngins doing over there?

I've yet to play an adventure path that did not give us our wealth by level several times over.

I understand that not all APs are the same, but I'm astounded to see so many people claiming they have difficulty affording their capstone items. Paizo is pretty good about ensuring heroes get what they need in my experience, so tg8s indicates to me that there is likely something else going on at your table (like a GM being stingy with the treasure, the party not selling off loot, or the party rogue hoarding a bunch of unreported findings).

Prove your potential to Kurgess? LOLWUT?

What is going on with the official Rules Archives? Why can't I access it all of a sudden?

Deriven Firelion wrote:

If you want more of an old wizard feel, try the imperial sorcerer.

You're mostly right, of course.

But one thing that I used to enjoy pre PF2 was the wizards niche as the Know it All character. The Hemione Granger of spell casters.

Of course, Int no longer fully scratches that itch anyway with Religion and Nature being based off of Wisdom (which is a SUPERB change in general but does hurt this particular fantasy). And Legendary Arcana (depending on how the GM runs things) is a thing much more likely to be taken by the wizard than the sorcerer.

It would be cool if the new wizard class had a class ability that allowed them to substitute Intelligence for those skills.

I would apply it to any spell that creates something with permanence, such as everlight or protector tree.

Probably do in some form or another, but it's not something that really pertains to adventuring and so doesn't need game mechanics.

Seems like something to talk to your GM about. Might make for an interesting character background or adventure hook.

Maybe just ask your GM to play the system as intended and to stop screwing over the casters.

Pathfinder 2e's math is well documented and understood; your GM's encounter setup is clearly the problem. If it doesn't change then at best all we're going to be able to do is give advice on mitigating the circumstances rather than a true solution to the actual problem.

I would Write the Codex of Horror, about the worst threat lurjing in the material plane.

Allghollthu, the Dominion of the Black and so many more.

Ooh, I would absolutely love some body horror options, much like the 1e alchemist or the content from 1e's Horror Adventures.

I'd recommend sorcerer over bard. It's the simplest caster in the game, and is a cut above the rest when it comes to damage and healing.

A bard's spell list is rife with mind influencing spells, which are of limited use against undead. Your buffs are unlikely to amount to much either, what with a primarily defensive guardian, a rogue who can't deal precision damage against many undead, and an investigator who is unlikely to be all that affective in melee to begin with.

So be a sorcerer and blow everything up. Just watch out for your allies.

I’d probably remaster Gnomes of Golarion. That book was absolutely unhinged in the best possible way--equal parts whimsical, unsettling, and deeply Pathfinder. It leaned hard into the idea that gnomes are colorful little chaos engines barely held together by curiosity and existential dread, and I’d love to see that concept revisited through a modern Remaster lens, with updated lore, art, and cultural depth.

But if I were really going full gremlin and sneaking something new onto the production schedule, I’d write a Lost Omens–style guide focused on “little people”: gnomes, goblins, halflings, and other Small humanoids.

Not just a stat or ancestry book, but a cultural deep dive.

It would explore what daily life actually looks like when the world is built for Medium and Large folk. How do these cultures design cities, tools, vehicles, and defenses? What does hospitality mean when your guest might be three times your height? How do Small ancestries navigate intimidation, patronization, or being underestimated, both socially and politically?

I’d want chapters on:

Domestic life (architecture, food, festivals, and family structures scaled for the Small)

Adventuring realities (gear modifications, tactics, and why Small heroes often survive on cleverness rather than brute force)

Power dynamics (how these peoples are treated by larger societies and how they exploit or subvert those expectations)

Inter-Small relations (gnomes vs. goblins vs. halflings; where they clash, where they cooperate, and where they absolutely refuse to understand each other)

Basically: a book that treats Small ancestries not as “cute options” or comic relief, but as fully realized cultures that have had to adapt to a world that literally looms over them.

Also: the art would be incredible. Give me cross-sections of halfling homes built into human cities, goblin marketplaces carved into absurdly unsafe places, and gnome workshops that look like they were designed by someone who has never once considered OSHA compliance.

If I’m breaking into Paizo HQ, I’m not leaving without making Small folk feel big.

I think this is being overthought. Darkvision is a simplified, catch-all game mechanic meant to represent a variety of ways creatures might perceive in low-light or darkness; things like infravision, heat vision, ultraviolet vision, and similar senses. Older editions of D&D actually used those more specific terms, but they were later streamlined to make the game easier to run.

Conceptually, those creatures still “have” whatever sensory abilities they would have had before; they’re just abstracted. This is no different from how turn-based combat abstracts an otherwise chaotic fight, or how hit points abstract serious bodily injury. Combat doesn’t literally pause every six seconds, and a grievous stab is still grievous (at least from the character’s perspective).

So if a GM wants to describe a creature tracking someone by the residual heat of their footprints, and then resolves that with a perfectly ordinary Survival check, that’s entirely reasonable. The narrative description is just window dressing layered on top of a standard mechanic, in service of the story and the table’s enjoyment.

Outside of this abstraction, darkvision doesn’t really exist in the campaign world as some distinct, named, or inherently magical ability. In most cases, it isn’t magical at all! Plenty of entirely mundane animals possess darkvision.

I'm pretty sure you can only gain one effect per distinct trigger. I wonder if that would impede this strategy any.

Hey everyone,

I’ve been digging into Razmiran lore lately and ran into a question I can’t quite pin down with certainty: Do Razmiran priests genuinely believe in their own divinity and in the supposed godhood of Razmir himself?

On paper, Razmir’s entire nation is built on a lie and plenty of sources make it clear that high-ranking clergy know this. But what I’m curious about is the internal culture of belief among Razmiran’s priesthood:

Do most priests know it’s a hoax, or is that knowledge limited to the top tiers?

Are low-ranking acolytes indoctrinated from the start to truly believe they serve a living god?

How much self-deception exists within the hierarchy? Are there priests who choose to believe because the alternative undermines their identity or power?

And lastly, do some priests genuinely believe they themselves possess divine authority derived from Razmir, even if they don’t consciously buy into his supposed godhood?

There’s a lot of room for interpretation here, especially given how propaganda-heavy and cult-like Razmiran society is, but I’d love to hear how others have handled this in their games or how you read the canon lore.

Looking forward to your thoughts!

Ravingdork wrote:

Zoken44 wrote:

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

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

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

Easy. My Imperial Sorcerer had Heal as his 1st-rank arcane signature spell and the daily ability to prepare one 1st-/2nd-rank spell regardless of tradition as another signature spell, e.g. Cleanse Affliction, Harm, or Silence.

Fey Influence (Unicorn), Elf + Otherworldly Acumen (+ Share Thoughts, Wildborn Magic, Brightness Seeker), Arcane Evolution + Ancestral Mage, wand of Recall Legacy.

:O

Does the Bloodmagic- Stolen Life affect only apply when the spell is cast at the level granted by Sourcerous Gift? For example, if I make Harm a signature spell and cast it at a rank higher than 1, does Stolen Life apply?

It applies regardless of spell rank.

Ravingdork wrote:

Perpdepog wrote:

An archmage is an archmage because they keep out-maging other mages and somehow acquire consensus from their peers and inferiors that they are the most mage there is.

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

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

Why then is archmage and wizard so difficult for us to work out? (Rhetorical, some explanations have already been given upthread.)

My 2cp on this comparison is that there are real-world examples to draw on. We know the relationship between Knights, Soldiers, and Squires because of history.

There is no such Apprentice, Wizard, Archmage history to draw on.

That's a good point.

An archmage is an archmage because they keep out-maging other mages and somehow acquire consensus from their peers and inferiors that they are the most mage there is.

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

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

Why then is archmage and wizard so difficult for us to work out? (Rhetorical, some explanations have already been given upthread.)

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

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

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

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

Ravingdork wrote:

a uniquely powerful and talented master of the arcane arts, a cut well above your typical NPC wizard or sorcerer.

Uh... Isn't that what any Arcane tradition PC spellcaster is supposed to be?

As this is essentially a brainstorm thread, I intentionally left it as a VERY broad open concept.

What is an "archmage" to you? How might you represent it in-game and with what mechanics?

Sure you could simply say "be a high level wizard" but that's not really conducive to the discussion's goal of generating ideas.

There is no archmage archetype, prestige class, subclass, or feats insofar as I'm aware. Just a couple themed items, such as the archmage's regalia and robe of the archmagi.

So, if you want to play as an archmage*, then how might you go about doing it?

No homebrew rules or third party content suggestions please.

If you were in a position in which you needed to jump a distance, but did not have the use of your feet (such as when dangling by your hands), how do the rules expect us to run that or, in the absence of such rules, how might you expect to run this corner case?

I'm imagining something like a rock climber hanging from the underside of a rock overhang by their hands and needing to jump to a nearby cliff face. Like in those Tom Cruise movies (Or maybe it was Sylvester Stallone? Whatever.) or any number of video games with widely spread "jungle gym" elements.

What does a Sudden Leap used in conjunction with Cloud Jump look like?

And what happens to creatures inside the bag when it ruptures?

This is how vengeful Vecnas are made.

If you scroll down to the bottom of the product page in the store (past the bit where the social media icons are) there is a section titled "Customer Reviews" and a big button which you can click to add a review.

Where exactly is that "big button"? I don't see it anywhere on any of the product pages. I've checked in a number of different browsers and all I see are the little "Write a review" links for OTHER products at the bottom of the page; and clicking on them doesn't seem to do anything.

Could my ad block be censoring it maybe?

Are people putting AI generated art of conrasu into their guides? The ones I remember don't include a picture for every ancestry, and doing so with be more of a detraction from the guide then it would be a benefit even if each picture was custom commissioned.

I was speaking more generally about character portraits, since they constitute the vast majority of art people search for, for their roleplaying games.

When I tried to leave a product review, I couldn't find any links or options to do so.

There doesn't seem to be anything on the product pages or on my account pages that would allow for me to leave a review.

I want to be heard. Where is this capability? I see mention of other reviews (though clicking on them doesn't reveal any of their contents) so I know it's possible to do.

What am I missing?

Sure, but Paizo already have an alternative brought up in this thread for if they care about that. And if they don't care about it, why not use actually good art instead of AI slop? It's not like generating an AI image is easier than grabbing something off of google or pintrest.

For incredibly specific or contrived characters, Google or Pinterest aren't going to be much help. At best you might find something kinda' close, then have someone Photoshop it the rest if the way. But at that point you might as well just get someone to make a unique image for you in the first place.

But with "AI slop" nothing is out of reach. Take the conrasu, for example. You couldn't find good art of them anywhere. Best you had were Photoshopped treants.

Now conrasu art is much more common, and will show up in searches (and many look pretty good), but 75% of them are AI generated. They simply wouldn't exist if not fir these amazing new tools.

Probably time to create new threads for these subjects. The ruling is clear we can discuss it elsewhere.

I considered asking for this whole topic to get moved to it's own thread, but thought better of it since I seriously doubt anti-AI Paizo wants a thread on their forums in which people talk about whether or not Paizo should adopt AI.

TBH I am pretty comfortable with writing, so I would not use an AI for this.

I'm been writing for over 30 years, and am quite comfortable with it myself.

I still frequently use AI tools to check my spelling and grammar, or to soften the tone of what might otherwise be a volatile knee-jerk reaction post. (Did anyone notice that I haven't caused any big blow ups in the last few years?)

Are thousands of my posts now suddenly at risk of deletion just because I used AI tools to make them better?

I've heard of psychic magi plenty of times...in these forums.

I've yet to see one at an actual table.

Also, how can you make sure an image has been created with AI?

They can't. It will be educated guesses at best.

That's one of the many reasons it's not practical, or really at all enforceable.

It also opens up the potential for abuse, with people falsely reporting alleged AI content of posters they just so happen to be feuding with.

Lots of pitfalls for little to no real benefit for Paizo or their consumers.

Ravingdork wrote:

So, to clarify: direct links to generative-AI content will no longer be allowed on Paizo’s digital platforms. Under this policy, it seems the acceptable alternative is to link to a neutral, third-party site, which can then host or link to any relevant assets on its own. Since Paizo’s moderation only extends to content within its own domain, this would appear to comply with the new guidelines.

I feel the easiest way is just to contact Broken Zenith to give them the link to the guide and then post here as usual but with a link to the 2e Guide to the guides instead of to the guide itself.

That's exactly what I was thinking.

For your second question, can you provide an example of this? I'm struggling to relate it to the conversation at hand with generative AI on our forums specifically, but that could just be my autism being rigid about conversational buckets, and I want to make sure I get on the same page as you to give you an accurate answer!

Allow me to rephrase:

If another company creates a product using AI tools or generated AI assets intended for use with the Pathfinder roleplaying game, is Paizo going to send them a cease and desist letter?

I'm thinking of apps like Pathbuilder 2e, a campaign setting book for a non-Golarion setting, or Tableplay Gamers' various online Pathfinder character galleries, all of which might contain AI generated content or had been obliquely created with AI tools.