Renkosuke's page

If Ignite the Sun were, say, a level 5 or so spell, the most remarkable thing I'd find about it would be the huge light radius. Otherwise I'd think "wow, neat spell" and move on.

Megavolt deals 3d12 dmg at level 6 with two action investment.

Air gets something similar but requires 4 actions.

It maxes out at 9d12

Megavolt maxes out at 10d12, uses 2 actions. But only once per combat.

You're essentially sacrificing actions for unlimited uses.

This is nitpicking but Stormbolts maxes out at 7d12, no?

fighters cannot get legendary in kinetic blast before 19 because they do not have a weapon type.

You can sorta cheese this by taking something like martial artist which progresses your proficiency in unarmed attacks. A decent amount of work, yes, but still possible.

At the moment, most martials are actually better than the kineticist at kinetic blasting because most martials use str/dex as their primary stat and kineticist don't... so if the archetype allows Kinetic Blast to be picked up (and honestly, why wouldn't it?) then there's going to be that slight edge they have. Which makes things a bit awkward. You could circumvent this by putting a hard cap on kinetic blast proficiencies or even removing it from the archetype, but that would make the kineticist archetype pretty lackluster.

Literally summon a sun in the middle of his field.

I like this option because the damage is so low it probably won't kill him!

I actually really like this idea as well. The concept of using passive+active feats to slowly customize your character/blast fits really well into the kineticist fantasy (at least it does for me). I can see this also helping to smooth out the inherent imbalance in the basic elemental blasts, since you could now just set them all as d6 + 1 trait (or whatever other baseline seems appropriate) then use feats to slowly improve or expand them. This would also help prevent other classes from poaching kinetic blasts once the multiclass archetype comes out, since presumably kinetic blast would be one of its key features and any other martial picking it up would automatically be more skilled in it (because of the +1 stat difference) (they could still poach the blasts ofc, but now the kineticist at least gets extra bits and bobs added on from all their feats).

This would require a pretty big overhaul of basically all of the feats, but they probably need it anyway.

As an aside, I find it mildly humorous how over-the-top all of these impulse names are compared to how little damage they do compared to something like "Fireball".

I agree with the above. The one issue (that I can find) with having legendary class DC would be with weapon critical specialization DCs, which you could pick up from ancestries or archetypes, but I don't see that as being much of an issue to begin with. And like Pronate mentioned, you could just limit the legendary DC to only work with kineticist class abilities.

Considering you're also at a penalty compared to most martials when using Elemental Blasts, both are feelsbad options. They put a lot of emphasis on the all day utility aspect of the class, and also seem to be overcompensating for the at-will actions by making them feel pretty weak. A lot of impulses seem to go "obsolete" as you move up the chain too, which feels like bad design to me. Power Attack on a fighter is useful throughout the fighter's lifetime, but I don't see anyone using Flame Eruption after getting Blazing Wave and/or Solar Detonation (not that they're particularly exciting either but just an example).

More to the point, I saw someone else comparing high level impulses to focus spells, since by level 18 you can have 3 reusable focus spells per combat, which is usually enough to say that you have all day casting of them. In that situation, impulses fall behind pretty dramatically, though I don't have any specific numbers to really drive the point home.

Elemental Weapon wrote:

The weapon is still the gathered element and can be used for impulses, is expended for overflow impulses, and so on.

It can also be used for Elemental Blasts or standard Strikes (provided they’re melee blasts or Strikes if you choose a melee weapon or ranged blasts or Strikes if you choose a ranged weapon).

So you can Blast with an Elemental Weapon, from what I can tell it still uses normal Blast mechanics, but you can only make Blasts of the same type as Strikes from the Elemental Weapon. So a Tengu Aerokineticist who bought Access could use Elemental Weapon (Tengu Gale Blade) could make 1d6 S (Agile, Disarm, Finesse, Air) Strikes or 1d4 S (Agile, Air, Finesse, Reach, Versatile B) Air Blasts, but could not use the 120-foot Ranged Air Blast. Likewise a Shackles-native Hydrokinetic Pirate could use their Elemental Weapon (Pistol) to make 40-foot 1d4 B (Fatal d8, Water) Strikes or 30-foot 1d8 B (Water) Blasts but can't make a sweeping Water melee strike. Of course, either of them could just Release their weapon and Gather a more standard Elemental Mass if they needed to change range.

I do kinda wonder now if weapons like Daggers and Starknives would allow someone to use both range of Blasts, since they can be used both in melee and be thrown for range. Or for that matter, something like a Javelin, which is inherently a ranged weapon but only usable Thrown.

The thrown weapon is an interesting consideration, since it would be a cheeky way to circumvent the restriction that Elemental Weapon otherwise places (now we just need to get clarification on how to put runes on it). Alternatively combiweapons like the dagger pistol might also work, assuming you have access.

I am also curious on whether 1+ hand weapons are allowed (ie: bows). An elemental bow sounds like it would be pretty cool, but it's in a weird spot on whether or not it counts as a 1H or 2H weapon

There is also no range listed (or a typo if it's supposed to be a 20ft emanation instead of a 20ft burst)

cheezeofjustice wrote:

Also worth noting that the current phrasing of the ability and the kit allows you to pick a one handed weapon with the two hand trait and 2 hand it after summoning it.

Also Flexible Blast might combo with it since you can use the weapon for Blasts. If this means you do the the weapon damage with the blast action (which I think you do?) it would mean you can finesse those things. Or use STR with guns. As long as you are using the Blast action with them.

Nice catch with the two-hand trait!

Hm, I had read it as you having the option to either Blast (using Blast rules) or Strike (using Strike rules but presumably still your Handwraps so it isn't Too-Bad-To-Be-True). So the Blast would have its usual damage dice and add-on abilities, while the Strike would be using weapon dice and traits.

As I read it, the weapon counts as a weapon of its type (so a longsword is a longsword) but uses your unarmed proficiency. But since it's still a longsword, your handwraps don't do anything to improve it. I do think it's an oversight and it's intended for the damage to scale somehow (either through your handwraps or with some other formula) but I obviously can't be sure of the exact intent.

The way the ability is worded seems to imply you can use the Elemental Blast actions with the weapon (as long as it's the same type, melee or ranged) or make strikes on its own, but it doesn't seem to give any support for advancing the weapon's own strike damage (it doesn't say anything about sharing runes, nor does it say that the weapon's damage changes in any way except for its type changing to whatever your blast does). I think that's more an oversight than anything since as it's currently written it's mostly just a debuff.

I think the disconnect here is that Paizo (in 2e at least) has been leaning toward elements as a physical substance rather than something made of energy -- ie: water is water, air is air. Fire is the odd one out here but the way they've treated the kineticist elements is consistent with how they've done the Elemental sorcerer and also the Elementalist class archetype. Note that the Elementalist spell list also doesn't include things like ray of frost or electric arc.

Considering they've decided to add stuff like a Plane of Metal and a Plane of Wood (as opposed to having it be an extension of the Plane of Earth and the First World, like in 1e), I wouldn't be surprised if one day they decided to reinclude energy-based elementals and give them their own plane. In that sense "Cold" is a separate concept from "water" and would exist in its own plane. The same for electricity and air, acid and earth, etc.

I personally would also like to see kineticist being able to wield those energy-based elements, whether tied to the existing ones or as a separate element entirely, but I feel that it's unlikely.

This is just a general list of issues I took with the playtest kineticist, as of this moment. Some of these are probably posted elsewhere as well. As a disclaimer, I haven't actually tested anything out in an actual game (since it's still the first day).

--Core Issues--
1) Constitution: I'm on the fence about this one. Thematically I love it, but mechanically it has problems: if it's used for too much, then it becomes a god stat, and if it's used for too little then it feels like a debuff on the class. I don't have a solution for this, but reintroducing burn or even just a "take damage to gain buffs" mechanic might work.

2) Weapon proficiency: This feels unnecessary. Key score constitution already puts a debuff on accuracy, and the other classes that have the same issue (Thaumaturge, Inventor, Investigator) have core features that mitigate it (like Devise a Stratagem) on top of having standard martial proficiency progression.

3) Melee Elemental Blasts provoke AoOs: (Because of the Impulse trait) This is *probably* on purpose, but I feel like it's unnecessary on top of all of the other difficulties that kineticists will have making attacks. If the kineticist had on-par attack bonus scaling with all the other non-fighter martials, then I could live with this staying in.

--Basic Class Feats--
4) Elemental Weapon: The feat makes no mention of damage scaling (only that the damage type is the same as the gathered element). As written, it doesn't gain any benefits from handwrap runes and there's no good method of applying its own runes (aside from holding on to it for a day while someone inscribes runes onto it, and then never letting go ever again). I imagine this is just an oversight and I know you can use elemental blasts through it, but as it's written right now it's actually a debuff since it restricts what kind of blasts you can use. Also, it mentions that you have to choose a one-handed weapon, but I imagine you could still choose a weapon with the two-handed trait (like a Bastard Sword) and end up wielding it in 2 hands anyway.

5) Kinetic Activation: More of a quality of life thing, but adding a line that lets you identify scrolls like a spellcaster would be nice (ie: you can automatically identify scrolls that have spells of your element, without needing a check).

6) Flourish actions: There are none, despite a lot of other classes normally having the flourish tag on a lot of similar actions. Blast Barrage, Cycling Blast, and Chain Blasts come to mind. I can't tell if this is on purpose or not, but I feel like they should probably have the flourish tag (Cycling Blast I can see not needing it as much). If nothing else than to prevent them from being used alongside other flourishes (like skirmish strike or, hamster forbid, flurry of blows).

7) Deconstruct Element: Considering this is both an impulse action, and requires Dedicated Gate, the line at the end allowing you to immediately Gather the Element feels inconsequential. Thematically cool though.

--Air Feats--
8) Soothing Breeze: What's the range of this, or is it supposed to be a 20ft emanation?

9) Fair Winds: Considering there is no save for this ability, it seems... strong. Especially with Aura Shaping. And it automatically distinguishes friend from foe.

10) Wings of Air: At-will flight at level 8? For the whole party at level 14? And it's actually better than all other on-level equivalents? Seems... also very strong.

--Fire Feats--
11) Flame Eruption: The damage from this feels wayyy too low for an overflow ability, even with the hazardous terrain (which in theory ticks a maximum of two times per cast, unless push/pull effects are used). Using Stoke Element to boost its damage makes its damage *reasonable* but costs a total of 4 actions. Either the overflow trait needs to be removed or the damage needs to be increased (2d6 base with +d6 per 2 levels feels like the bare minimum).

12) Blazing Wave: This hits the bare minimum for damage, but still feels kinda bad. The prone effect feels somewhat arbitrary too. I feel that persistent fire damage would be more thematic here (also there seems to be a lack of persistent fire damage in general).

13) Furnace Form: Do the Produce Flame spells from Fiery Body use Charisma? And Trained proficiency? It feels relevant since the 1-action produce flame is bound to be a lot more powerful than your fire blast strikes at that level.

14) Arrive in Conflagration: This ability is great, but the teleport requirements are a bit steep. The only way to actually cause persistent fire damage as a pyrokineticist is to critically hit on an Elemental Blast or with the Horrid Ignition feat, which is curiously the same level as Arrive in Conflagration.

15) All Shall End in Flames: Since kineticists have Evasion, having the option to choose to fail the save against this impulse would make its utility a lot more reliable. Also it's somewhat unclear whether Elemental Immunity replaces Elemental Resistance or simply adds to it -- in the latter case, you would also resist the damage from this impulse, making it even less reliable to use for its utility.

I don't have anything to say about the Earth and Water feats since they seem to be relatively balanced with respect to the rest of the class, and I obviously haven't played them yet to see how their utility/damage output balances overall.

My overall takeaway is that the numbers for this class feel slightly underwhelming but its all-day utility potential is relatively high. Auras and utility feats seem to be the way to go, alongside a few key damaging abilities (Blast Barrage and Chain Blasts come to mind).

In regards to the Bespell Strikes feat only being 4 uses per day... I feel like a lot of people are forgetting that Focus spells are still spells, and the only requirement is that the spell cast is not a cantrip (ie: spells from staves, wands, and scrolls would theoretically also work with this). Even without items though, casting one of your magus focus spells basically gives you a 1-action Bespell Strikes proc usable once per combat, and up to two more times per day if necessary (if you take the other focus feats or just have a bigger pool for whatever reason).

Also imo the 12th level Bespelled Persistence feat is pretty decent with the right build. It's a reliable source of persistent damage that applies on a standard hit, and since the damage type is based on the weapon you use with the right set up you can stack a lot of different persistent damage effects on one (or more) enemies. Even with limited spell slots, I can see Runic Impression -> Bespell Strikes [force] -> Strike x2, into a Striking Spell -> Generic Attack Spell -> Bespell Strikes [Something Else] -> Strike x1. It's a reasonable amount of damage by itself and even better if you manage to hit an elemental weakness of some sort. Persistent force damage on an incorporeal target is always nice too.

Most of what I am going to say has been said before, but I have a few points I haven't noticed yet. Also, I will disclaimer this with saying that I have only played up to 4th level, so that is what I'm most familiar with.

I like the idea of resonance points. It's been pointed out that they remove CHA as a dump stat (not that dumping is really a thing right now) and they force the player to make conscious choices about his magic items.

As far as I can see with my limited amount of playtest games, the Resonance system has 2 faults:

1) It heavily reduces the adventuring day for parties without an innate form of healing, reducing the diversity in successful party comps, and

2) The resonance point economy still favors items which have passive effects, similar to how the Big 6 worked in PF1.

In regards to #1, I felt that the CLW wand spam was a necessary evil to allow players to freely choose what characters they wanted to use instead of having to be forced into the classic Wizard-Rogue-Fighter-Cleric basic 4 composition. Obviously this is over simplified, but cheap level 1 wands did allow for a greater diversity of party compositions (I remember a PFS scenario where my party consisted of 4 wizards, a sorc, and myself as a kineticist. We had our challenges and I had to be the frontliner but it was that kind of diversity that made random-party online PFS not only viable but exciting and unique, in my opinion at least) (I realize I say "diversity" when 5/6 of that party was arcane but that's not the point >.>)

Of course, if having a CLW wand is the equivalent of having a cleric, then you'll see the cleric role losing its identity as a healer class, but this can be addressed with specific nerfs to wands (like how they were reduced to 10 charges).

As for #2, I feel that there should be a revision of the RP cost-to-benefit of many of the magical items. The Bracers of Missile Deflection were mentioned before, but I agree in how terrible they seem. You need 1 RP just to invest them (with no passive attached) then another RP each time you want to use them. Removing either of these costs would be fine to me (although I would prefer removing the activation cost, as it already costs a precious Reaction and is against only a single ranged attack). Similarly, trinkets seem to cost far more than they're worth, both in GP and RP (making these invested 1/day items or something similar would be fine imo but I can see how trinkets can get out of hand).

At the moment, the items most useful for RP use are: Weapons, Armor, and Staves. Weapons and Armor are pretty obvious choices and are mandatory to any martial class, but for spellcasters a staff is also an incredibly useful item because of its passive investment bonus. Having to spend RP on any item other than these 3 generally feels bad, especially if it's a consumable. I feel like this only exasperates the "Big 6" problem.

As for potential solutions, I would prefer to keep the Resonance system, but do agree that the cost should probably be removed from consumables. As a compromise, I think it'd be okay to make wands invested items but remove the RP cost for activating them. With only 10 charges, this means you can't spam them quite as much as you'd like, making higher-level wands more appealing at higher levels. To compensate for this, I also think that the total number of RP should be modified (overall reduced). Level + CHA at low levels is -way- too little, esp for CHA8 dwarves, but also too high at high levels, where you really don't have many places to spend all of those points (unless you spam wands or consumables). If you both remove the RP cost from consumables and reduce the total number of RP available, not only do you make a decent replacement for item slots but you also make the Extra Resonance feat more appealing. I'm sure the Paizo PF2 team is a lot better at numbers than I am, but for reference I was thinking of something like 2+CHA at level 1, plus 1 at 5, 10, 15, and 20.

Those are my 2 cp on the matter, but I am also compelled by law to ask when you're going to add in kineticists to PF2 :)

Mark! I have a very important and slightly urgent question that needs your attention.

What's your opinion on ducks?

Just a heads-up to you guys: There was a recent meeting with various teams where we've been requested to move FAQ Friday to FAQ Tuesday so it doesn't abut a weekend (since answering questions can often lead to grar from stakeholders in the answer we didn't give, but people aren't at the office to moderate on weekends). So there should be a pretty frequently asked question this coming Tuesday for our first FAQ Tuesday!

Can we at least rename it to Foozday? ._.

Although this isn't the place to discuss rules (as opposed to asking them from the Great Seifter) I just wanted to chip into Dark Midian's response in that a Fire Blast can be classified as a spell depending on how you interpret Spell-Like Abilities (this is a can of worms).

Also, Infusions/Utilities and Feats sorta exist on a 1-to-1 basis, although infusions/utilities tend to be somewhat stronger than feats most of the time (my reasoning for this is the Elemental Annihilator, which trades out utilities for bonus feats on a 1-to-1 basis, plus the Extra Wild Talent feat).

Burning Amplification actually functions inferior to Burning Infusion (penalty on attack roll/save, still requires a separate save for the fire, no immediate catch-on-fire damage, no bonus to hit/SR checks/etc. for the rest of your fire blasts), so I don't think this trade-off is entirely bad. If you're trying to stack it with another substance infusion to essentially double-down, you're still taking the -1 DC and whatnot. Plus you don't benefit from searing flame when using the feat. All in all, I don't really see a reason to disallow it.

I am going to go slither back into hiding now.

I like ducks.

(tl;dr waiting for dev input on the issue)

Hi Mark,

Has there been any word with how Two-Weapon Rend works with an Elemental Annihilator? When I asked you something like half a year ago, you mentioned that since Double Slice and whatnot are called out to use Con instead of Strength, then Two-Weapon Rend, which is one of the bonus feats, should probably also use Con instead of strength, but there hasn't been any campaign clarifications or FAQs that reference it.

Just wondering, mostly for future reference. Thanks a lot!

Woot! Thanks Isabelle :)

For the record, I really enjoy the class concept. I can't wait to take it out for a spin!

Renkosuke wrote:

Mark Seifter wrote:

If you like brainstorming weird past life ideas, I'm doing so for an amnesiac samsaran psychic who's much more ruled by her past lives than normal for an Ironfang Invasion campaign starting on Saturday. Right now I'm collecting ideas on my Facebook fan page, but I can peek on this thread as well. My goal is to have a d20 chart (or d100 chart eventually if I get ambitious) that I can use to decide which ancestor is more prominent. I mentioned more details on my post in the link, but the short version is most of the ancestors should be from Tian Xia, and something short like "vigilante attempting to undermine Imperial Lung Wa" is what I'm gathering right now.

I think this is an amazing character concept, but I also think it would work better with medium than psychic (to be fair, I haven't read into psychic as much as I have medium). The reason I say this is probably pretty obvious, but since you can switch your "role" by choosing which spirit to channel that day, it would make it easier for you to roll a d20/d100, look at the chart and say "oh, today's personality is that of a chainsaw-wielding maniac" or "Ah, looks like I am playing a rogue today", etc. etc.

I don't know too much about Ironfang but if it allows chainsaws I find it hard to say no to at least one past-life using one of those :D

//edit
Blah I didn't read much into the linked thread but now I realize you chose the class via poll (darn I would have totally voted for Kineticist :P ). I am still very interested to see how you will implement the different personalities into your psychic though!

The plan is to use amnesiac archetype in order to do something similar via spell selection. Medium was on the table, including for this concept, but the group is a little too tilted towards meleers to allow me great breathing room as a medium to swap around without affecting party balance, so repicking my spell list but still...

I completely forgot about amnesiac! That sounds like a pretty exciting concept actually. I'd love to see how it turns out. I'd post some ideas but I've got the creativity of a concrete block, so perhaps that's not the best idea :P

Entirely off (on?) topic but here's a question concerning the Kinetic Knight that you may or may not have already answered (apologies if you have). The archetype's Elemental Blade class feature mentions that it "alters Infusions" but it doesn't actually say it removes the infusion choices at the levels which the archetype gains all of its melee stuff. In other words, I'm not sure whether the archetype replaces the infusions you normally gain at levels 1, 3, 5, 9, and 11 or if it's just altering the way you can use them (ie: only kinetic blade form infusions, plus substance) but allowing you to choose the (not very plentiful) substance infusions at all of those levels. The latter seems quite powerful (and an overwhelming amount of infusions!) but at the same time it does remove Metakinesis entirely, plus remove the Knight's ranged options.

--considering that Knight's resolve does replace the level 3 infusion, I would assume it's actually the latter case. This makes the Purist Knight an interesting option too (even if only to actually be able to use all those infusions).

If you like brainstorming weird past life ideas, I'm doing so for an amnesiac samsaran psychic who's much more ruled by her past lives than normal for an Ironfang Invasion campaign starting on Saturday. Right now I'm collecting ideas on my Facebook fan page, but I can peek on this thread as well. My goal is to have a d20 chart (or d100 chart eventually if I get ambitious) that I can use to decide which ancestor is more prominent. I mentioned more details on my post in the link, but the short version is most of the ancestors should be from Tian Xia, and something short like "vigilante attempting to undermine Imperial Lung Wa" is what I'm gathering right now.

I think this is an amazing character concept, but I also think it would work better with medium than psychic (to be fair, I haven't read into psychic as much as I have medium). The reason I say this is probably pretty obvious, but since you can switch your "role" by choosing which spirit to channel that day, it would make it easier for you to roll a d20/d100, look at the chart and say "oh, today's personality is that of a chainsaw-wielding maniac" or "Ah, looks like I am playing a rogue today", etc. etc.

I don't know too much about Ironfang but if it allows chainsaws I find it hard to say no to at least one past-life using one of those :D

//edit
Blah I didn't read much into the linked thread but now I realize you chose the class via poll (darn I would have totally voted for Kineticist :P ). I am still very interested to see how you will implement the different personalities into your psychic though!

Coincidentally, would this also mean that feats like Elemental Focus and the Affinity for the Elements trait don't function with Kinetic Blasts?

GM Tyrant Princess wrote:

Just rule against it. Someone's star count is no measure of their rules authority, and you have the designer who created the class right there, all but saying that it doesn't officially work that way. If your player contests it, tell him to take it up the chain.

Isabelle is right. As written, it probably doesn't work with kineticist (pyromaniac lists precisely what class abilities it works with, and kineticist isn't on that list; it doesn't have any "and so on" wording). I presented a possible houserule to allow it on caster level checks as a potential compromise between the likely as-written (no effect) and the game-balance-issue other possibility of "+1 level for all things of that element, which for kineticist is the entire class".

Alright, thanks! I think the largest argument on the side that it does work was "casting spells with the fire descriptor", which was argued to work with SLA's because SLA's say they work in every other way like spells (aside from the lack of components and whatnot). Of course, in practice there are a lot of places where SLAs differ from Spells, but from now on I'll point them toward this thread and look smug.

Kalindlara wrote:

That said, here's Mark Seifter (in all the glory of his Paizo staff regalia) explaining his recommendations for houseruling kineticists with Pyromaniac. ^_^

I'd consider Mark Seifter's recommendations as official as it gets short of actual printed rules. :)

The statement is a bit obscure it its wording, though. The way I interpret it, he thinks Pyromaniac should apply to Gnome Pyrokineticists where caster level explicitly comes into play, but not raise the blast damage (which would be keyed to class level rather than caster level)...? That's disappointing, but I guess it makes sense.

This confuses me for two reasons.

2: The Spell-like Ability entry in the core rulebook mentions that with the exception of casting time and components required, an SLA functions in all ways like a spell.

It would follow that, as written, pyromaniac and stonesinger would not only affect kinetic blasts, they would add +1 levei to the calculation for damage and spell level. You can make the argument that character level ≠ kineticist level, but you can say the same for character level ≠ caster level for actual spells.

Without dev intervention, as written, this combination should work. Which is a shame since gnomes and dwarves are already solid kineticists. I would actually prefer this to get removed since otherwise I have to continue to put up with a certain Danish 5-star GM bringing his dwarf-oread kineticist to my tables T-T

@Shadow_Charlatan I would argue that an Aetheric Gravity Boosted Omnicide is probably the most damaging singular composite blast :D

I say singular because you could instead use Flurry of Blasts on it to hit 6 people with it (with haste), but then I could see the argument that over time, a Wall Omnicide could do more damage. That's a whole can of worms and I don't think that's what you were asking anyway so I'll just return to my corner over here...

Erm, but before that quick question for Mark! In Psychic Anthology (amazing book btw) there's a universal form infusion Blade Rush that says "instantly move 30 feet in any direction". Does this mean move exactly 30 feet? ie; are you allowed to move less than the full movement if you don't see the need to? Also, it says instantly move without provoking but does this allow someone to pass through (but not end up inside) an enemy's square?

Sorta related, but if you are falling during your turn, at what point do you begin falling? Since it's all part of one action, I imagine if you could use Blade Rush to move straight up and attack some flying creature (when you yourself lack that capability) before you start falling, but could you take any other actions? If so, what kinds would be permissible? ie: standard, move, swift, free? Does it depend on what the action does? (for example, using blade rush to leap up and then greater flame jet to maintain your position in the air as a free action, or continue moving as a move action).

This is starting to become a not "quick question" so I'll leave it here, but so far I am loving the new book. I am already using a few things in a campaign-style AP and I can't wait to see what Additional Resources makes of it :D

Thanks for answering all these questions! (I mean, I guess that's what the thread is for huh...)

Here's another question about wording and whatnot. The impale infusion reads:

Make a single attack roll against each creature or object in a 30-foot line, starting with the closest target. If the result is a critical threat, roll to confirm against only the first target you hit.

The line about the critical threat seems to imply that this means "Roll once, compare that result to every enemy's AC, roll damage against what you hit", but "Make a single attack roll against each creature or object" can be interpreted as meaning one attack roll per target.

I see it played the first way more often (ie: one attack roll, compare against all creatures) but that seems to make it pretty all-or-nothing since a lot of the time creatures bunched up that close together have similar ACs. Then again, perhaps that was the intent of the infusion in the first place...

I was planning on using this with an Air Purist, like one of those cool anime air cannons that blow holes through people and buildings and stuff (Big O immediately comes to mind).

Thanks for the Purist help, that information is definitely useful to have as I'm sure my next 3 characters will probably be purists :X

Random question about Phytokineticists -- I feel like this was probably addressed somewhere but I can't find it with my (admittingly poor) google-fu. The list of Wood Wild Talents on page 8 of Occult Origins lists Woodland Step as a level 2 utility, whereas the wild talent itself on page 9 lists it as a level 1 utility. Which one is correct?

Thanks!

Renkosuke wrote:

Follow-up question!

Would an Impossible Infusion that has text that specifically refers to specific types of blasts or damage keep that text when being impossibly infused? For example, Chilling Infusion says

Chilling Infusion wrote:

Whenever an infused blast deals cold damage to a foe, that foe is staggered for 1 round.

-- would this mean that if I used impossibly infused a fire blast with chilling infusion, that the fire blast wouldn't stagger anything because it would not deal cold damage?

Similarly, could you use Impossible Infusions to ignore other activation requirements, such as with Grappling Infusion which requires a Wall, Cloud, or Deadly Earth infusion, or would those requirements prevent you from Impossibly Infusing your blasts (unless you also infused them with a Wall, Cloud, or Deadly Earth infusion)?

I just checked with John on this to make sure he agreed, and you should be OK to replace deals XXold-damage with XXnew-damage whenever you are using an infusion meant for blasts that deal old-damage but actually deal new-damage, as long as you substitute energy for energy and physical for physical.

As to other activation requirements, those are still in there.

Thanks for checking this for me! Does this mean that if I use an impossible burning infusion with a cold blast, that the over-time damage would also be cold, or am I setting someone on fire with sheer cold?

Follow-up question!

Would an Impossible Infusion that has text that specifically refers to specific types of blasts or damage keep that text when being impossibly infused? For example, Chilling Infusion says

Whenever an infused blast deals cold damage to a foe, that foe is staggered for 1 round.

-- would this mean that if I used impossibly infused a fire blast with chilling infusion, that the fire blast wouldn't stagger anything because it would not deal cold damage?

Similarly, could you use Impossible Infusions to ignore other activation requirements, such as with Grappling Infusion which requires a Wall, Cloud, or Deadly Earth infusion, or would those requirements prevent you from Impossibly Infusing your blasts (unless you also infused them with a Wall, Cloud, or Deadly Earth infusion)?

Hooray for Optionmas! I have received the gift of the Elemental Purist, which I am very pleased about.

Question about that though (although I don't know how much hand you had in designing the archetype). The Elemental Impossibility alternate feature replaces Expanded Element and 2 infusions with this:

At 7th level, an elemental purist learns one composite blast as if she had an expanded element that matched her primary element. In addition, she learns one impossible infusion

(plus three more impossible infusions at 11, 15, and 19)

by this wording, you do not gain the second simple blast of your element (if it had one) but you DO gain the composite you would have gained had you gained that second simple blast. Is this the correct interpretation or was this an oversight? It seems kinda weird for me to create a thunderstorm blast when I can't create an air blast, but I can see how this can be a balancing feature since having both a simple physical and energy blast with impossible infusions can get really crazy really quick (empowered disintegrating chained blue flame blasts anyone? -- not that this example is actually relevant)

Thanks as always :)

Another question!

Does Kinetic Fist require an open hand to use? This might seem like an obvious "well, you have to use an unarmed strike for it right" question, but let's say as an example you have a kitsune with a greatsword (or two scizores to prevent him from temporarily releasing a hand on his/her weapon) trying to use kinetic fist with his bite attack.

The kinetic blast class feature says you need a free hand to use the kinetic blast, but does that apply if you infuse it with Kinetic Fist?

To take this to an extreme, can you use kinetic fist if you have no hands whatsoever? If you are a fox with kineticist levels, could you use kinetic fist with your chomp attacks? Even better, if you are a fox with monk and kineticist levels, could you make a flurry (furry?) of blows with your soft, fuzzy paws and also apply kinetic fist?

You might see where I'm going with this :P

Hi Mark!

So this archetype exists: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/witch/archetypes/paizo---witch -archetypes/havocker-witch-archetype

My question is this: If you multiclass Kineticist and Havocker Witch, I assume your kinetic blast scales evenly across both classes (so your blast damage is equal to d6 * 0.5*(Kineticist Level + Witch Level + 1) -- but let me know if this assumption is wrong). In the Havocker's infusion section, it says that the witch "cannot accept burn" -- does this mean she can't accept burn period, even if she's also a kineticist who can normally accept burn, or does that just mean she doesn't have the burn class feature and so can't accept it unless she gains that class feature in some other way (ie: by becoming a kineticist)?

The wording there is kinda convoluted but I think you get what I'm asking.

For the most part I'm trying to give my aerokineticist one of these: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/magical-beasts/chuspiki

Not because it's particularly strong (although the damage is decent for a random familiar) -- the character token I use for this character just happens to have something that looks EXACTLY LIKE IT sitting on her shoulder, so I thought it'd be appropriate. At the moment I'm using Elemental Whispers to emulate a weasel, who will eventually become a wysp, but that's nowhere near flying weasel-rat with super-long tail and wings.

Hey Mark, are you a poodle or a chihuahua kind of guy?

Also you could indeed take finessed maneuvers, but then you would have to delay at least two of your damage feats and the EA's damage would drop below a regular kineticist's if he did not have haste, which would not do for this comparison.

Now then, can a regular kineticist not use finesse to disarm/trip with the kinetic blade/whip? I had not considered this before but that would make them more useful in teamwork. Of course lower BAB, maybe not.

You wouldn't need Agile Maneuvers since Weapon Finesse should cover you with Trip, Disarm, and Sunder (as they are based on the weapon, and you can use the Kinetic Blast to make those attacks). I asked Mark about this a while back and I believe he OK'd it, although that is far from an official ruling of any sorts. Either way, since the Kinetic Blade/Whip (or Devastating Infusion) counts as a weapon, RAW it should work.

Of course, you would need to get improved trip/disarm/sunder if you wanted to go that route with the devastator, which would carve heavily into your feat pool. Greater Sunder with a kinetic whip would be pretty neat though :D

For the record, this would be my general feat path for a TWF devastator (up to level 11):
Weapon Finesse, Power Attack, Weapon Focus, Two-Weapon Fighting, Double Slice, Weapon Specialization, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Two-Weapon Rend, Improved Critical.

Nothing out of the ordinary there, but if you're a halfling you can substitute one of those feats for Risky Striker, which makes you pretty good against large+ creatures.

Renkosuke wrote:

The problem is mostly that you can't build a damage class (ie: Kineticist) and then give it an archetype that just does more damage, since you're going to ruin the overall balance of the game.

Well that's the really damning thing. The baseline kineticist isn't really a damage class. It certainly doesn't do bad damage, but it struggles to complete with traditionally DPR focused builds outside specific breakpoints(like 3-5 which is pretty huge for the kineticist and does a good job demonstrating the problems with linear damage scaling).

Now theoretically it does this because it has all this extra utility and versatility thrown into its chassis via wild talents. The Annihilator then throws all of that and doesn't actually get any better at fighting.

Ultimately the value of every archetype boils down to what you get for what you give. The annihilator gives up a lot of utility and never gains access to some of the Kinetiicst's best tools... and yet for the majority of a typical campaign there's a really compelling case to be made that you get literally or at least virtually nothing in return.

Yes and no. I'll agree there are more classes out there that can consistently put out more DPS than a kineticist (although a kineticist can burst for more than any of them imo, we're not counting that since you can't do it all day). Somehow, though, virtually every person I come across online says the kineticist is broken because they "do too much damage". I'll let you have a field day with that.

My thoughts on it are just that the ones that do more damage for less aren't exactly balanced in their own right. That's purely my own opinion, and I'm sure you have a different one. Unfortunately, we're not going to get anywhere spouting opinions at each other.

@ChessPwn I agree with you, although I'd factor it in more around level 8 if anything (which is around when you can get boots of speed without giving up anything else important in your build). To be fair though, a Kinetic Blade Kineticist's numbers skyrocket with haste.

Right, but that eliminates weapon finesse from the table, which means you'd have to move around the feats a bit.

Talking about feats, I believe you missed one feat in the 7-9 feat range Monkey, from my calculations you should have 4 at level 6, 7 at level 9, and 9 at level 11.

While I agree that it probably doesn't do "meaningfully" more damage than a standard kineticist build, I do think that at most levels (levels 3 - 5 being the exception) it does do consistently more damage than a standard Kineticist. The problem is mostly that you can't build a damage class (ie: Kineticist) and then give it an archetype that just does more damage, since you're going to ruin the overall balance of the game. The way I look at Elemental Annihilator is more of "we do damage even more reliably than normal kineticists" as opposed to "we just do more damage". Cue in the insanely high attack values and virtual inability to actually burn (allowing/forcing you to spend it all on defense).

It is somewhat upsetting that you can't use certain elements with it... it would have been nice to at least make it turn fire blasts into a physical blast that deals fire damage, for example, (like swinging around a battle poi!) but I can see how that may have been a nightmare to balance so I can't fault them (too much) for making it as it is now. Adding in an option to use composite blasts would have been great too (for example, reducing or negating their cost when used with devastating/flurry). Alas, there is no use crying over non-existent milk.

In the end though, personally-speaking, and also from a balance perspective, the Elemental Annihilator still seems to function at a more-or-less equal level to other classes of its type, so I am reasonably satisfied with it. It's no bloodrager, zen archer, or gunslinger, but we don't need more of those anyway :P (plus the online PFS group complains enough about my kineticists already)

Edits!
@miscdebris: Aside from what I would consider obvious you-can-only-1-hand-a-light-weapon, it-has-to-be-at-least-a-1-handed-weapon-in-order-to-2-hand-it argument, Mark Seifter mentioned it in the Ask Mark Seifter Stuff thread a while back. I'm too lazy to pull up the exact post but you can look at my list of posts since I was the one who asked the question, and search from there (my post list isn't long so this shouldn't be incredibly hard).

@Ashram: You are correct, but I am of course talking about Devastating Infusion and even if you manifest a rapier, none of its qualities apply as per Kinetic Blade.

@Tels: I was not referring to Utility Talents, I know you can't use those. I specifically called out infusions. The EA archetype eats up all of your infusions from levels 1-9, but not the "free" one you can gain if you expand your primary element at level 7, and from level 11+ it doesn't consume any of them. The archetype doesn't disallow you from choosing infusions (or else it literally wouldn't work at all) so you could, for example, take something like Impale or Foe Throw at level 7.

@Blind Monkey, there are two things you're not taking into account here. The first is that the archetype doesn't disallow you from using standard blasts like any other kineticist. With Weapon Specialization they're even (slightly) stronger than normal. Early on, you lose most of your infusions but you keep the one you get from Expanded Element (assuming you expand your primary which, why wouldn't you anyway) and you keep the ones from level 11+. So with your example for a chain blast at level 11... EAs can do that too. Plus wreck things in melee with all of their fancy feats. Plus you get extended/extreme range for free, so might as well use 'em.

The second thing you're downplaying is the usefulness of some of the defenses. A standard fighter gets a lot of fancy stuff regarding their armor and weapons, but free HP or free DR or free AC or a constant miss chance vs projectiles is huge.

Alternatively, you can combine EA with Overwhelming Soul, since very little an EA does burns anyway (except that lovely level 20 blast). Your stats will be slightly lower, but in return you gain more flexibility with racial choices (halflings being a personal favorite, but Kitsune or Ifrit work just as well) and you can max out your UMD to give yourself some magical flexibility. Might as well stock up on scrolls and wands anyway with all of that spare cash you have from not needing to buy magic weapons :P

The last thing I want to mention is that EA makes it a bit easier to go into Combat Maneuver feat chains that are usually very difficult to access with a kineticist. Since Weapon Finesse lets you use Sunder, Trip, and Disarm with your Dex, you can do Combat Expertise -> Trip/Disarm or Power Attack -> Sunder for some kinetic shenanigans. It's unlikely to do more damage than a typical build but it brings some utility and can be pretty fun.

Oh yeah one last thing (I promise), you can't actually use 2-Handed Fighting with Weapon Finesse so your calculations for the 2-Handed EA would be quite a bit different. All things considered, I still think it's the weakest option of the three so I don't think it's too important anyway.

And with that, I'm through page 109; since page 111 has a lot of answers in it, that means I'm more than halfway caught up now. Woo!

Hooray!

That means I need to think up more questions :D

Mark Seifter wrote:

Rysky wrote:

Mark Seifter wrote:

TriOmegaZero wrote:

It'd be a Christmas miracle!

Oddly, the answer is the reverse: probably not because of a holiday miracle (that being that we actually had significant snow stickage, rare for around here, so I'm unexpectedly the only Design Team member in the office today due to living nearby).

So all the power's in Mark's hands now...

I don't have the clearance to have all the power. Instead I have none of the power. It's gotta be one or the other.

Aww, so we're not gonna get a pile of Kineticist FAQs?

I would have liked these ask well ._.

Random question about Kinetic Blade and Kinetic Whip (mostly about blade):

Kinetic Blade states that it remains active until the end of your current turn, whereas Kinetic Whip says that remains until the start of your next turn, thus allowing you to make attacks of opportunity using the whip. Would this imply that if you were given a chance to make an AOO during your own turn, that you could use a kinetic blade to make that AOO, or are you entirely incapable of using your kinetic blade in that fashion?

An easy example of this would be when you use your kinetic blade and greater trip to trip an opponent. A rarer example might be if an opponent triggers an attack of opportunity against you during your turn by taking a readied action that provokes AOOs. A weird example would be when you have greater trip and use the bowling infusion on your kinetic blade to knock down your opponent after the attack resolves. The weirdest example might involve all three (with the opponent using a readied action to stand up after being tripped, somehow predicting he would fall down, and then you spending an iterative to knock him down again. Why you're making a trip attack when you've already infused your blade with bowling infusion is beyond me).

Shanks as always!

Texas Snyper wrote:

Azten wrote:

I hope you didn't design the archetypes too. I mean, it's cool if you did and all, but I'd like an archetype I'd actually use that is Paizo published(though N. Jolly's are amazing).

I think the problem is that the class abilities are so finely interwoven to work together for the class as a whole to work as it does in its well balanced state that any archetype that fiddles with those abilities disrupts that balance and are therefore underwhelming compared to the base class.

This is often the case, and it's a much better situation than the other possibility which is an archetype that you would always take because it's a strict upgrade (gunslinger suffered from that one and some of the issues people have with the class stemmed from its archetypes and not the base class). That said, I think blood kineticist and elemental purist are both pretty good (witha shoutout to the freelancer and developer on purist for both having cool stuff and also not invalidating mono-element non-purists, which most ways to write a mono-element archetype would do), and while annihilator isn't my personal playstyle, it can lead to a brutal switch-hitter.

I actually have PFS characters in every archetype except Overwhelming Soul and Chirurgeon (and the evil archetype one, and the Purist, since they're not legal >_< ) and they all work quite well actually. I rather enjoy most of the Kineticist archetypes because they pose real questions in how do I balance out losing A to gain B. Unlike many many other archetypes which are like, well I was never going to use A anyway so choosing B is pretty obvious. See Mark's quip on gunslingers :P

The surprising (or perhaps not-so-surprising) thing about most of them is that they all tend to do massive amounts of damage, sometimes more than what their non-archetyped counterparts deal, and the different feel to each of them make playing them feel like quite a unique experience.

Also, for the record I now have 12 active PFS kineticists :P

More questions! So many questions!! AGHHHHHH

*ahem* Excuse me.

Does the Elemental Ascetic's Flurry count as having the Flurry of Blows class feature for feats such as Pummeling Style/Jabbing Style?

Hi Mark!

I have another question that I've been wondering about for a while, but always forget to ask. It's a little more tame than my usual questions though :P

How exactly does the ongoing fire effect from Burning infusion work?
So the main points I'm wondering about are:

1) When do you take the first "tick" of damage? Is it when you first fail the save (ie: when the blast hits you), or is it the beginning/end of the turn after your first tick? If it's the latter, do you essentially get another save that next turn to remove the effect before you start taking ongoing fire damage?

2) What save DC do you use for the ongoing effect? Is it your substance infusion's save DC, or is it the standard DC15 to put out fire?

3) When does the target save for the effect? Is it on your turn or his own?

In regards to these, the only hints I could find are from the environmental hazard rules that imply you would take the damage when you first catch on fire, and then you could put it out on your own subsequent turns using the (usually lower) DC of 15. I see a lot of people play this very differently, so I was hoping to get some input on you for the original intent of the ability and/or how you would run it.

Thanks as always!

Hi Mark, I come bearing strange and (perhaps) unusual questions!

This comes from my attempt to build a YoYo mage from a Void Kineticist. You may already see where this is going.

Question 1: How many times in a single round/action can a character be affected by a spell-Wall? In general, I'm talking about things like Wall of Fire that deal damage to creatures that pass through it, although I'll be trying to apply this logic to the Kineticist Wall infusion as well. For example, let's say our friend David the Dwarf is presented with a wall of fire, which he decides to move through, taking the fire damage as normal. He then sees a host of, say, 500 goblins on the other side staring him down, and, realizing that he probably can't deal with them by himself, decides to run back through the wall on the same turn. Would he take the fire damage again?

Say that he's a little braver than (or perhaps just not as bright as) your average dwarf and decides to hold his ground instead, but then got bullrushed by one of the goblins who had readied an action for the moment he appeared, back through the wall. Would he take the fire damage from the forced movement through the wall? Would it make any difference if the action was not readied and he was simply bullrushed on the goblin's turn?

Question 2: The Pushing Infusion wild talent says that it cannot be used with any form infusion that would fail to create a clear direction to push in, like Mobile Blast or Wall. This makes sense. However, Pulling Infusion doesn't have that line, and also says that the blast always drags the foe closer to you. Is it appropriate to interpret this as you creating a gravity field such that whenever the blast deals damage to an opponent and succeeds in the CMB roll, it will pull that opponent closer to you regardless of where your position was when the ability was used? To be more specific, if you created a Gravity Mobile Blast, Gravity Wall, Gravity Singularity, etc. with the pulling infusion, would it always pull a creature affected toward your current location, regardless of the position and shape of the blast and your initial/current positions?

Question 3: If you are capable of dealing damage multiple times in the same turn/action (as per Question 1) and Pulling Infusion indeed always pulls an affected target toward you (as per Question 2), is it then possible to place a Gravity Wall with the Pulling Infusion behind an enemy you are in melee with, and then, say, Elemental Ascetic Flurry him with Pushing Infusion on your fists to cause a YoYo effect that will end with either a very dizzy and possibly dead opponent, or a failed CMB check/attack roll?
Would it even be possible to throw down a pulling-infused wall between yourself and an enemy in a way that, if you succeed with your CMB roll they would be forced to take both the wall creation damage, and then the wall passing damage in the same turn?

To be fair, the average damage output is probably not too high since each CMB check only adds half your blast damage and the whole thing requires a -lot- of rolls. But it still sounds like fun!

Bonus Question! When using the Flurry of Blasts infusion, it states that Pushing Infusion gains an extra maximum 5 feet of push distance per extra hit. Would this apply to pulling infusion as well, or does it get left out?

Thanks as always!

Renkosuke wrote:

Mark Seifter wrote:

Khaokineticists can often be dark and moody, though of course darkness isn't always evil. After all, Yoon's grandmother was strict but kind, and she was Void/Fire, using her void powers to protect Yoon (until her defeat in battle). The Khaokineticist I added to Jade Regent had a fairly horrific backstory and wanted to withdraw into herself afterwards, though one of the PCs and a rapport psychic ghost emperor "helped" her through that. Phytokineticists might be mistaken for druids by the uninitiated, and they probably hang out in forests and other plant-heavy areas where they can commune with plants and also seriously stop most opposition cold with heavy crowd-control effects (seriously, phyto does suffer from lack of utility talents, but when you have terrain to use it, plant growth at will is terrifyingly effective).

I love the concept of Khaokineticists, but I am rather appalled at their lack of level 1 utility options. It's a choice between Void Healer (which is very rarely useful, especially when your race options are limited), Skilled Kineticist, or Elemental Whispers, and you can't even use Greater Elemental Whispers later on. The level 2+ stuff is great though!

Oh yes, on the topic of Khaokineticists, is the Emptiness defense talent designed to be stackable like most of the other defense talents, or do you gain its effect once, and then double it if you spend 1 burn (but are unable to spend additional burn to continue improving the effect)?

Dragon78 wrote:

Would it be possible to have a kineticist element based on an outer plane? astral plane? what about the material plane?

A material plane kineticist... don't we call those physicists? :D

Yeah, you should be able to stack it, but it looks like I either missed that initially or (more likely) cut it during copyfitting.

Excellent! This has been bothering me for quite a while now :X

1) Yeah, I was thinking basically a "synthetic" element created by mortal ingenuity, presumably with its own archetype, which is pretty close. It wouldn't be technology as the element (technology is something built, elements are fundamental building blocks), but alchemy and magic would have helped create the element.

I would also love to see this. Still screams out physicist to me but I'm just being pedantic :P

Khaokineticists can often be dark and moody, though of course darkness isn't always evil. After all, Yoon's grandmother was strict but kind, and she was Void/Fire, using her void powers to protect Yoon (until her defeat in battle). The Khaokineticist I added to Jade Regent had a fairly horrific backstory and wanted to withdraw into herself afterwards, though one of the PCs and a rapport psychic ghost emperor "helped" her through that. Phytokineticists might be mistaken for druids by the uninitiated, and they probably hang out in forests and other plant-heavy areas where they can commune with plants and also seriously stop most opposition cold with heavy crowd-control effects (seriously, phyto does suffer from lack of utility talents, but when you have terrain to use it, plant growth at will is terrifyingly effective).

I love the concept of Khaokineticists, but I am rather appalled at their lack of level 1 utility options. It's a choice between Void Healer (which is very rarely useful, especially when your race options are limited), Skilled Kineticist, or Elemental Whispers, and you can't even use Greater Elemental Whispers later on. The level 2+ stuff is great though!

Oh yes, on the topic of Khaokineticists, is the Emptiness defense talent designed to be stackable like most of the other defense talents, or do you gain its effect once, and then double it if you spend 1 burn (but are unable to spend additional burn to continue improving the effect)?

Would it be possible to have a kineticist element based on an outer plane? astral plane? what about the material plane?

A material plane kineticist... don't we call those physicists? :D

Please cancel my remaining subscriptions.

While I like the character-building options in P2E, the dramatic way in which the math & numbers scale just isn't a good fit for the more ad hoc style of GMing that I do. I simply can't get an intuitive "feel" for the rolls/results anymore without looking at external references or doing lots of pre-planning, and that's just not how my brain (or group) works.

Thanks.

Been a while since I've frequented the site, but I was surprised to see that /PRD redirects to an outside site for 1E content now. Anyway, I was curious about if there are any plans to eventually host an official 2E PRD website. Will we see a site similar to the old one hosted and maintained by Paizo itself, is the preference to have a community-maintained site instead, or are there perhaps official apps planned for the Windows, Apple, and Android stores instead?

Given how the content of new 1E books was usually delayed from entry into the PRD for a release cycle or two (gotta eat & pay rent!), I'm assuming that if we do see a new PRD site, it may be a bit yet. Sill, I'm just wondering what timing we might expect, and/or what guidelines are relevant to any community go-getters who want to forge ahead with a wiki or other reference style site.

After some character generation and leveling exercises Monday and tonight, my group identified what we feel would be a HUGE time-saver when it comes to creating and leveling characters. It would also make UTEML a lot more intuitive.

Preview:
Here's a visual example of what we're proposing:
Preview Image

Suggestion:

1. First, make the Training Modifier for Untrained equal "0".
   Reasoning: If you are Untrained in a skill, then that means you have *zero* investment in it. If the modifier for Untrained becomes "0" instead of "-2", then not only is that more intuitive, but a lot of fill-ins and potential mistakes have been instantly eliminated.
   
2. Second, move the TEML labels into the circles and place the modifiers above them.
   Reasoning: We can now see the Training Modifier and know to add it. But what about the Proficiency Modifier box you ask?
   
3. Third, relabel the Proficiency field as "Level".
   Reasoning: Now that the Training Modifier is visible, calculating the Proficiency Mod is no longer a necessary step.
   
4. Lastly, it's usually pretty easy to remember what character level you are without having to rewrite it 30 times. What if we wrote the word "Level" in light-grey text inside our new Level field?
   Reasoning: Players who don't get the hint could still write their level in this box, but for the rest of us, it would save 30 erasures per level-up!

Benefit:
With these changes, we would go from this:

• Erase Proficiency Modifiers 30x
  
• Erase Skill/Attack/Whatever™ Modifiers 30x
  
• Recalculate & rewrite Proficiency Modifiers 30x
  
• Recalculate & rewrite Skill/Attack/Whatever™ Modifiers 30x

To this:

• Erase Skill/Attack/Whatever™ Modifiers 30x
  
• Recalculate & rewrite Skill/Attack/Whatever™ Modifiers 30x

That's a pretty significant savings in both time and erasers. Also, by eliminating fully half of the calculation steps, we've eliminated dozens of potential opportunities for mistakes and typos.

Furthermore, at those special times where we actually get to increase our level of training, it will be a lot easier to appreciate the change since we would no longer be rewriting a Proficiency Mod on that line the same as every other as we presently do. :)

Example:
Restating from the preview, here's what this formatting change would look like for the Acrobatics Skill: PNG Image

NOTE:
Even if Paizo doesn't want to tweak the math slightly by making Untrained "0" and bumping the others up by +2 each, the other suggestions can still be implemented without the use of houserules — they are merely formatting changes, after all, and wouldn't modify the rules or math one bit! In that event, we'd simply add a "U bubble" for Untrained and put "-2" above it. :)

Can you please cancel my Starfinder AP and Pathfinder AP subscriptions?

Thanks.

I ran my group thru our Session 0 last night (Aug 13), and since I'm concerned that we may not be able to complete Chapter 1 of Doomsday Dawn before the 26th, I at least want to give feedback on some pain points we encountered that should be relatively easy to remedy. These are chiefly in regards to rulebook layout for character creation (especially Ability Score generation), and to how existing fields on the Character Sheet can be tweaked to decrease complexity, and speed-up character creation/leveling...

For the sake of reference, I'll be spoilering how the actual session itself went in case you want to skip directly to our recommendations.

Ability Score Generation was Harrowing
Issue: Starting on page 11, the Character Creation Overview has partial info about how to create ability scores in far too many separate places. This actually confused my players more than if they'd simply leafed thru the book on their own. While I can understand the need to mention ability scores early on (since many steps influence these stats), it might be better to break out the "Ability Scores" subsection on page 12 into a sidebar rather than including them with the other fields to be filled-out under "orange bullet" #1. As it is now, since the "Character Sheet" instructions at the end of step #1 makes no mention of ability scores which leaves newbies scratching their heads rather than realizing your intended message of "plan ahead."

Suggestion 1: On pg 12, move "Ability Scores" out of Step #1 and into a sidebar.

Suggestion 2: On the reverse side of the 3rd page of the character sheet, include an ability score worksheet.
Example: Excel | PDF

Suggestion 3: Make Character Creation its own chapter, and revamp the Character Creation Overview from being a 6-page summary into 1-page outline.
Implementation:

1. Format the Overview as a full-page sidebar similar to the optional rolled ability scores rules on page 21. This will help it stand out from the narrative portion of the chapter.
   
2. Put a numbered list for the "orange-bullets" at the top, and the miniature annotated sheet at the bottom.
   
3. In the outline, rather than having several paragraphs explaining each step, allow each "orange bullet" a 1-2 line entry along with the page number for the relevant rules.

Suggestion 4: The ability score walkthru on pages 19-20 really needs to be printed on facing pages in the final rules.
Benefit: A walk-thru should have its totality in-view at once for ease of reference without having to flip the page.

Calculating Proficiency Bonuses Can Be Streamlined
Issue: To a person, everyone got turned around on how to factor their proficiency bonuses on skills, attacks, etc.

Suggestion: The whole group was in agreement that each line should simply have a box where you write your level, and let the bonus confered by your degree of training be assumed by the TEML bubbles rather than needing to be written down.

Thankfully, this is more of a formatting change to the character sheets moreso than a rule change. Here's how to accomplish this without requiring any additional formatting space on the character sheet...

Implementation pt1: Split the proficiency bonus into its constituent parts: separate character level from the training bonus.
Benefit: Your level will change frequently, while your bonuses from training will be much more static. This will make leveling-up a character much faster and more intuitive as you will simply be incrementing your Level in the 30 places it appears on the sheet rather than having to re-calculate 30 Proficiency boxes. Similarly, since one's level of training doesn't change nearly as frequently as one's level, if the training bonus is tallied seperately, it's that much less often that you need to erase and change that value, and it will be a lot easier to spot where and when to update a modifier for that reason.

Implementation pt 2: Set Untrained a +0, Trained as +2, Expert +3, etc.
Benefit: While subtracting 2 from a number is childsplay in a classroom, doing so repeatedly during character creation just introduces needless work and makes the game more complicated than it needs to be. Subtracting 2 from something that you probably didn't invest in anyway isn't intuitive; if you have zero investment in a skill, then your modifier from your level of training should be 0, not -2. This small change would save quite a lot of confusion.

Implementation pt 3: Make the TEML bubbles more useful. Rather than simply having a blank bubble with the training letter above it, place the letter inside the bubble and have the corresponding bonus above it.[/b]
Example: PNG
Benefit: Players no longer need to remember what their training bonus should be for each skill, and that eliminates another potential source of mistakes. Instead of having to add Level plus Training Bonus into a single field 30 times, Level and Training Bonus now each have their own easy-to-read, easy-to-update fields, and we've significantly reduced the number of steps someone has to perform in-their-head.

Other Stuff™
Familiar Sheets: This gang really loves their casters, and at least 2 players ended up with a pet of some sort. While I suppose I can just print out their critters' stat blocks from the Bestiary, the players still need a place to write those stats down when it comes time to apply the additional buffs such creatures get for being a familiar or animal companion.

Spells Known: Player #2 stated that page 3 of the character sheet (spells) didn't make much sense to them. They were confused that it has areas for both preparation and spontaneous casting, yet he didn't see anywhere to denote how many spells known he has. Can't say I felt the same way when I made a bard during my own tests, but then I'm primarily a P1 guy and they're a 5E player. This should be clear for someone regardless of past experience guiding their hand.

Senses: On the front side of the character sheet, players need a line to denote what sort of vision they have and it's range.

Ability Scores: The players are unanimous in wanting the ability scores grouped by whether they are physical or mental. Since this is presented in two columns on the character sheet, one column should be Str, Dex, Con, the other Int, Wis, Cha. It just doesn't flow well when they are grouped across columns like they are right now.

Armor Class It's awkward having the armor proficiencies located so far away from the AC section. Also, while it's obvious to returning players, you should probably note that the lower of the two values for Dex mod or Dex cap should be the one that's tallied into AC and TAC.

Summary

By and large Session 0 was a success. The players are all excited, and we did have fun for the most part. There were complaints that character generation was even more complicated than P1, and especially so in comparison to 5E, but they did seem to like the greater variety of options than 5E offers.

That said, I'm somewhat alarmed that Doomsday Dawn will require so much character creation. If it took everyone in my group 2-4 hours, to make a level 1 character, how long it will take when they have to make new characters at level higher levels? Perhaps if some of the advice above is incorporated into hotfixes before Chapter 3 that will help, though I may just go ahead and design my own character sheet to incorporate things that are mostly formatting issues rather than game-design issues.

Anyway, hope this helps!

Hi, can you please cancel my subscription to the Starfinder RPG rulebooks?

Thank you.

The new AP looks like a good fit for my group, could you please resume my Pathfinder AP subscription starting with the first installment (#121)?

Thanks!

Customer Service,

Last night I learned that one of my friends will be attending GenCon this year. I asked him if he'd be willing to save me some shipping costs by picking up my pre-orders for me, and (as you might guess) he was quite enthusiastic about the opportunity to peruse Starfinder before the rest of us! :)

So, would it be possible to nominate someone else to collect my preorders for me (rather than having to leave them in my sidecart until September)?

If so, his name is Scott Baughman, and my order includes a SF CRB, a SF GM Screen, and the SF Pawn Collection.

Thanks,

—Michael Darnell

So I'd really like to be able to experiment with mapping out my world by-hand on an actual spherical surface without having to use a computer. Unfortunately, all my searching on Google, Amazon, and Etsy has produced only frustration. The few "blank" globes I've found are either cheap household decor items, or they still have the outlines and/or bas-relief contours of Earth's continents.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00XQE0QBK
http://www.onlyglobes.com/Physiographic_Relief_Globe_p/610.htm

So does anyone know where a one might find or commission a truly blank globe? What I'm looking for would ideally have a dry-erase whiteboard finish, be completely smooth (i.e. no relief contours), and have permanent latitude and longitude markers.

Any advice would be appreciated.

I've been enjoying reading thru UI over the past few weeks, but today when I turned the page to the chapter on spells, I was confused that a full page of text appeared immediately after the spell lists began. That's when I noticed the page numbers on the bottom did not progress from 192 to 193 but from 192 to 161!

Flipping back thru the book, I have the following pages:
1-192, 161-192, 225-253

Photo

Any help would be appreciated.

Please cancel my subscriptions to Pathfinder Modules and Pawns.

Thank you.

So I was trying to use the Global Bestiary Indices today to view creatures by type when I noticed a problem.

Even after clicking "Uncheck All" under Filter by Creature Type, the page reads "22 results" and the following creatures are still displayed:
Celestial bat
Celestial cat
Celestial hawk
Celestial lizard
Celestial monkey
Celestial owl
Celestial rat
Celestial raven
Celestial toad
Celestial viper
Celestial weasel
Fiendish bat
Fiendish cat
Fiendish hawk
Fiendish lizard
Fiendish monkey
Fiendish owl
Fiendish rat
Fiendish raven
Fiendish toad
Fiendish viper
Fiendish weasel

Additionally, these creatures seem to remain displayed even when toggling specific creature types on and off. This makes it more difficult to tell what's what as the results are cluttered with what appears to be a bunch of low-level summons.

I've tried this in the following browsers on 2 different PCs with the same results:
Chrome 51.0.2704.103 m
Edge 25.10586.0.0
Firefox 47.0
Internet Explorer 11.420.10586.0

Since taking a new job a couple years ago, I haven't had much time to participate in PbPs, check out new products, or keep up with the boards in general. As such, if someone PMs me for something, there's a pretty good chance they won't get an answer for longer than would normally be considered polite.

Case in point: about 2 weeks ago, a GM on the boards PM'd me asking for a link to a map that I'd made of Windward Isle. They needed it rather quickly since their group was coming up on it. The only reason I even saw their message was because I wanted to login and update my mailing/billing address.

I'm rather mortified that I kept someone hanging for so long.

TLDR; Could we please have an option to receive an email notification when individuals we have not blocked PM us?

As my nigh negligible post count for the past year might suggest, RealLife™ has been kicking my rear lately. For the time being, I need to cut back on my gaming subscriptions until I've achieved a bit more balance.

I still want to stay subscribed to the Rulebook and Modules lines, but please cancel my subscriptions to both the Adventure Path and Maps lines.

Lastly, I do want to purchase the Strategy Guide, but I can't tell if I've properly pre-ordered it or not. If it's already in my Sidecart then does that mean I've successfully pre-ordered it, or is there something else I need to do?

Thanks in advance,

—Michael

Please cancel my subscription to the Pathfinder Pawns line. Thanks.

Didn't see any other posts mentioning this article, so I figured I'd share. Certainly a much more positive spin than the last one I read (which seemed focused recounting the old demon-worship hysteria more than anything else).

Enjoy...

40 years later, 'Dungeons & Dragons' still inspiring gamers

Just when your credit card thought it was safe...

Reaper Miniatures Bones II: The Return Of Mr Bones!

Yep, they're doing another one, and this time it looks like shipping is being handled in the order in which you select your base level pledge. Be eager to see how high this one goes, it's already up $100K from when I first saw it earlier today. O_O

When I clicked on the triangle to collapse/hide the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game forums, the entire listing of threads and forums vanished until I refreshed the forum page. Afterwards, the forum category I had attempted to collapse was still expanded.

While I use Chrome, I've duplicated the effect in FireFox, Safari, and IE wherein I confirmed that it is not just limited to the PACG forum. Additionally, I'm unable to expand previously collapsed forums such as Customer Service, Beginner's Box, etc.

And yes, I disabled Stylish (which I only have installed in Chrome and FF) to ensure that it was not the culprit.

Linkage: Screenshot

Hope this helps.

For each of the past few months, after receiving my preliminary notification, I've been going to the store and ordering additional products I need to nudge my final purchase above the $100 limit for purposes of discounted shipping.

However, after placing two orders this past weekend, I just now received my shipping notification, and none of those items are on the packing list.

I've never had this happen before. Did I do something wrong?

So I've been toying with the idea of transplanting my PbP to its own website in order to facilitate being able to have location-based sub-forums in which each 'scene' is its own thread. This would make it a lot easier to manage things when the party splits up or if two players want to break-out into a 1 on 1 while the main story moves on. Accomplishing all of that in a single thread has often proved... tiring.

The problem is, there are a few essential features that Paizo's forums have that I've had no luck finding elsewhere, namely the alias/NPC functionality.

Do any of you know of any forum packages that can duplicate the alias functionality found here in either the core software or via a plugin? There's just no way I'd want players (or myself) to have to login/out every time they need to author a post as a different character. A package that allows moderators to post as another user (within limits) would work too.

Any help would be appreciated. :)

Gary, et al:

Lately I was introduced to some freeform PbPs on other sites in which sub-forums are created for each city/region, and individual threads are created for each scene. Obviously this is very different from the single-thread PbPs found here, but I did find the setup intriguing. This would be especially handy for those times when the PCs might want/need to split up, or someone wants to continue a 1 on 1 scene past when the others are ready to move on.

Have you considered the possibility of implementing something like this? The post count for a game would be the sum of all its threads, but GMs would be able to organize things by creating sub-forums and threads beneath their main one.

I'd be tempted to implement this on my own site if not for the fact that there's much greater visibility here on Paizo.

Thoughts?

Are there any ways to use Strikethrough and Underlined text on the forums? I was trying to present some shipping manifests in-game, and while a lack of underlining (for filled-out form fields) wasn't so bad, the fact that <del>, <strike>, <s>, and [s] didn't work was... disappointing.

Gary, would there be any chance that GMs could someday gain moderator access to their own PbP threads? By moderator access, I mean the ability to delete, edit and move posts between all of the topics that are attributed to them.
.
.
.
The big reasons why this would be desirable are:

• Correct typos and changed URLs beyond the normal editing window.
  
• Shunt long conversations between 2 characters into a side-thread (so as not to delay the main one), and then move those posts back into the main thread in proper chronological order afterwards.
  
• Save on headaches when someone who has been authoring a lengthy reply gets ninja'd.
  
• Reattribute older posts to newer aliases when a 1-shot NPC ends up becoming a main-stay and merits their own alias.

In addition, it would also be nice for GMs to be able to upload custom avatars for NPC aliases as there are quite a few of us who have commissioned artists for character portraits. (Pretty sure I've used up all the decent elf avatars at this point.)

Honestly, if Paizo offered these abilities as a premium service (ala Gamespace), I'd happily subscribe for the same cost as my AP subscription. Heck, maybe that's a Kickstarter idea for after the PFO one has ended. :)

It is with a lot of pride in my heart that I'd like to congratulate all my players past and present for helping Rumble in the Jungle to break 5-digits. It's been THE best roleplaying experience I've ever had the pleasure to GM. Even though it's been a challenge sometimes, the story we've crafted together makes all the effort worthwhile. :)

I'd also like to thank Gary and the whole web team for building and maintaining such a great venue. There have been a LOT of improvements over the past few years, and with GameSpace around the corner I know that there are many more on the way. It wouldn't surprise me if my suggestions cause groans around Ye Olde Watercooler™, but I think I speak for all the GMs here when I say we really appreciate what you do... what you enable US to do.

Thanks again, players and Paizo both! :)

Is there any way to specify the various display options (particularly class) via a URL parameter for the Spell List Index?

i.e. http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/indices/spelllists.html&class=druid& amp;levels=0,1&source=all

Just wondering because I would like to be able to link directly to specific spell lists from my players' spell-tracking sheets. (I prefer the way these are laid out on the PRD over the implementation on the d20 PfSRD site.)

Likewise, is there a single common URL that can be used to access the detailed descriptions for ALL spells instead of having to know what book they come from? I've written a script to form the URLs for this purpose for the d20 PfSRD site, but the URLs in the PRD all include designators for the sourcebook in the URL which makes a universal script for this site impossible.

Please cancel my subscription to the Campaign Setting line. Thanks!

Hey all, given how huge of an influence he's had on our hobby, I figured folks would be interested to know about this project. The grand daddy of fantasy RPG artwork himself, Larry Elmore, is holding a Kickstarter for a massive artbook to collect nearly all of his work.

Check it out: Larry Elmore: The Complete Elmore Artbook (Hardback)

Gary, Lissa... Since the recent URL changes to the online campaigns section of the boards, I've found that lots of older links no longer work as they used to.

Example:
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/community/gaming/playByPost/pbPWardove sRumbleInTheJungle&page=38#1863

Used to go to the corresponding post on the correct page of the thread, however now it simply takes me to the first post of the PbP and shows the following URL in the address bar:
http://paizo.com/campaigns/WardovesRumbleInTheJungle/gameplay#1863

The desired/old behavior would have been to get taken here:
http://paizo.com/campaigns/WardovesRumbleInTheJungle/gameplay&page=38#1 863

Now if the server is able to forward/redirect the old URL path to the new one, I'm not sure why the page parameter would get dropped, but is there any chance this will get addressed (no pun intended)? I frequently cross-link between important posts in the forums and my wiki, and this just really made me go "Oof!"

FWIW, I'm seeing this behavior in both Chrome and IE 9 on my laptop; FF, Safari, and Chrome on my desktop (both of which are on Time Warner); and Chrome on my Droid (which is on Verizon with wi-fi turned-off as I test this). Hence, I suspect this behavior is server-side rather than client-side.

On a side-note, is there any way we can link to a specific post by number without knowing the page it's on? Any insight into either or both matters would be appreciated. :)

So while browsing the PRD today I noticed something that made me do a double-take:

Circlet of Persuasion

Slot: head
Description: This silver headband grants a +3 competence bonus on the wearer's Charisma-based checks.
Link: http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/magicItems/wondrousItems.html.

"That's not right," I thought, "was it always like that?" Then I looked in my 1st printing CRB and UE and was the same there. (In UE the description is longer, but it is still described as a headband.)

Now assuming this isn't a typo, then I can only conclude it's a well-intentioned change for purposes of maintaining game balance*. However, can we please get the fluff and crunch reconciled here? Ignoring the fact that I can just Rule 0 this, it just looks silly, and even worse, it's counter-intuitive.

Coronet of Persuasion

Slot: head
Description: This small silver crown grants a +3 competence bonus on the wearer's Charisma-based checks.
Note: I've already checked the pagination in UE and CRB and such a change would not increase the space needed. In fact, UE's description is actually longer than that found in the CRB.

So after noting that 3 of the final 4 from the last RPG Superstar were from NC, it go me to wondering why I haven't encountered more like-minded souls here in Charlotte.

For my part, my local Pathfinder group gets together on Tuesday evenings typically meeting up at New Zealand Cafe for sushi before heading back to my townhouse near McAlpine Park (S. Charlotte near Matthews). Games tend to be of the beer & pretzel variety, but the gang really loves getting into character and finding creative solutions to the encounters they come up against.

At this time, group demographics are...

M 36 (me/GM)
M 41
M 36
F 24
F 22
F 22
M 22

So then, who are you, where have you been hanging out, and what are you playing? Be cool to meet up and say hi at the upcoming ren faire at least. :)

Please cancel my subscription to the Pathfinder Player Companion.

Thanks!

In case any of you are wondering how to store all of your lovely new pawns, I figured out a pretty good storage scheme that should hopefully keep them from forming a huge mess inside the box.

If anyone else figures out good storage schemas of their own then be certain to share! :)

Link: Bestiary Box Pawn Storage

I accidentally clicked a bit too quickly and selected for the Bestiary Pawns to be shipped immediately rather than being held for my next shipment. Can you please correct this and ensure that anything I've presently got coming will all be in the same gigantic crate instead of a few little ones? :)

Also, is there a way to have new orders default to the side-cart rather than defaulting to ship immediately? I thought that there was, which is what led to my error.

Example 1: Screenshot
Example 2: This text is inside [ smaller ] tags.

Issue: The [ smaller ] tag is not formatting properly in the Campaign section (possibly other areas as well). On the preview screen, text that has been made smaller will show up smaller, however after submitting a post, the resulting output is the same size as normal text.

Since this is how whispering is typically denoted in PbPs, it's kind of annoying when it doesn't work — it makes it look like characters are just blabbing at normal volume.

I know it's been asked for by various other PbP GMS, but are there any plans in the works for helping us to show/hide which aliases appear in the Post-As box?

'Simple' Favorites: I think perhaps the simplest implementation would be to add a "Favorite" check box next to each alias on the My Account page. Any aliases flagged as favorites would appear in alphabetical order at the top of the Post As drop-down. Any remaining aliases would then be listed alphabetically after a dividing line in the drop-down.

Numbered Favorites: Expanding on the above idea, the check box would be replaced with a numbered field like we have when organizing a wish list. Favorites would then be sorted according to the numerical value placed next to them. Any remaining aliases would then be listed alphabetically after a dividing line in the drop-down.

Hi all, just finished work on a spreadsheet that allows you to create settlements quickly and easily by marking values in a spreadsheet. After you've finished, you can then select a city and export its stat block in one of 3 formats: plain text, bbcode (formatted for these messageboards), or wiki text (formatted for MediaWiki).

Further details, usage instructions, and the download link can be found on my wiki:

Link: Settlement Stat Block Calculator

If you find any bugs, or you just want to give feedback on whether it's useful or not, you can either leave a message here or send me a PM.

Enjoy!

Hi all, just figured I would make the kingdom-building tool I created available to the community. Unlike many of the other spreadsheets I've seen which are ideal for presenting a summary of a kingdom at-a-glance and summing multiple cities, the purpose of this sheet is somewhat different.

Instead of presenting a snapshot for one moment in time, this tool is a log and a calculator. It handles all of the various costs and factors on a month-by-month basis over a 10-year span. You can set the starting year, number of months in a year, and even export data at the end of one decade and import it at the start of a new decade. This enable you to see the growth of your city-state over time.

Since the level of information tracked would make supporting multiple cities unfeasible, my recommendation would be to track each city in its own sheet as a sub-kingdom. I know that there have been more than a few discussions about localized governments and such so I won't bother rehashing them. This is simply the method that lended itself best to development.

If you would like to try it out, the download is available from the Tools Category of my wiki, and any updates to the file will be made there, but you can inform me of bugs either via private message, or in this thread.

Note: This tool was constructed using the expanded rule set featured in Book of the River Nations by Jon Brazer Enterprises.

Hope some of you find this useful.

Gary, is there any chance you could increase the length of a PbP Campaign's "Short Description" field from the current 250-character limit up to around 1 or 2K characters?

I would really like to be able to maintain a short menu bar linking to the campaign's table of contents, wiki, and the character of the current party members, but the shortness of this field prevents the inclusion of any URLs.

[ Table of Contents | Wiki | Party: Alis | Amhranai | Darvesch | Isaac | Lureene | Tyralor ]

[ Table of Contents | Wiki | Party: Alis |

As a result of this limitation, I've simply be adding a more fluff-based header, but it really would be nice if I could add something with a bit more crunch.

While posting in the "Maybe OT: PBP Campaign Thread Help?" thread, I had a thought on something that might improve the utility of the messageboards as an information resource. Since Gary mentioned wanting to revisit the List functionality at some point soon, I thought it might be worth mentioning.

Lists are great for personal use, but have limited utility outside of those who know about a particular person list. Right now they function somewhat like file folders. While it's true that you can add a single post or thread to multiple lists, it's time-consuming and doesn't address the searchability issue.

What about adding the ability for board members to add GMail-style labels to threads or even individual posts?

On a site-wide scale, this would allow individuals to flag posts not merely for inclusion in a FAQ or for violations, but also to help categorize useful contributions. Forums that might be particularly well-served by the ability to tag posts/thread with multiple descriptive labels would be those concerning the various Adventure Paths, and the House-/Rules forums.

On a smaller scale, adding the ability for a GM and their players to label posts in their own campaign would make indexing the story, and noting posts with important information, new NPCs, and treasure vastly easier.

Naturally some support would need be be added to the search parameters, but with the ability to compose a tag/label-based search, it should help to filter results by categories and to know that these are posts other people have separated from the background noise.

In relevant forums, adding a tag-cloud for the currently viewed forum/thread would also help to give a high-level overview.

In terms of implementation, I'd say that a managed list of labels would be best. However, since it's impossible to think of everything up-front, the ability for people to suggest labels, and the ability to return an appropriate label when someone types a related keyword in their tag box would be ideal. Naturally in the PbP Campaigns, it might be desirable to allow the GM to control label creation and modification for their campaign threads only.

So what do you think? Too developer or CPU-intensive to implement? Would further elaboration or use cases be helpful?

Today's Dork Tower strip is about Pathfinder RPG, thought I'd share the link. :)

Dork Tower: Thursday, January 26th, 2012

After making rather extensive use of the list functionality on the site, there's a few things I wanted to suggest/request.

Mass Moves: (higher priority) This is the first and most important request I'd like to make. Right now I have a 512-entry "Table of Contents" (ToC) list for my PbP, but I would really like to split the entries into separate lists by-chapter. (By chapter of the story, not of the AP.) The problem is, currently you can only move items one-at-a-time.

Ideally, I would like to be able to specify a range of entries to move from the Edit list screen, and specify the first and last posts (using the List Order numbers) that I want to move.

A less optimal solution would at least being able to use the "Move to List" drop downs for multiple posts and then being able to click the "Update" or "Save Changes" buttons and actually have that process the moves.

List Entry Reordering: medium priority Remember back when people used to program in BASIC on Atari and Commodore and the best-practice was to number the lines in increments of 10 in case you needed to go back and add something later? Well, right now the list entries are listed consecutively with little to no space in-between entries. This makes it time-consuming to update the order of items in a list.

Usage Case: I make use of the ToC for my PbP players by listing posts that are either memorable, contain important information, or mark the start of a new day, etc. I then try to populate the description with mnemonic hints and keywords to make it easier to search the game from the ToC instead of using the site's search engine. However, if I miss a page of posts when I'm manually indexing and then need to go back and add those posts at a later date, it's difficult to do so because there are no gaps in the numbering.

List Reordering: lower priority Just like with editing list entries themselves, it would be handy to be able to reorder the lists themselves by number instead of clicking up/down.

Hi, I just subscribed to the Modules line and was hoping to start with Feast of Ravenmoor (which was listed as the option about 2 hours ago), but now it's beginning with the Ruby Phoenix Tournament instead.

I'm not concerned about paying for 2 or 3 modules all at once, but I really would like to receive Ravenmoor with the subscriber benefit.

Any chance you can make that happen?

EDIT: Oof! Is there also any way this can be combined with Order #1893085? I just got the email about those items getting ready to ship within the next week.

Is there any way to perform searches on specific phrases rather than merely on the words individually?

Example:
I wanted to do a search to see if there was any discussion on the Ultimate Combat spell "know the enemy" and its 1-minute casting time.

"know the enemy" "casting time"

That returns 9 results. Just looking at the top 3 results, I see instances of "casting time", but no instances of "know the enemy". Each result contains the words "know" and "enemy" only separately.

Performing the same search without quotes returns several 1000 results so obviously the quotes are having SOME effect, but they're not having the desired or expected results.

Other than trying to use Google to search a specific URL, is there a way to perform phrase-based searched on the boards? If not, is it on The List™?

Congrats Paizo. You know you've made it big time when you're featured on the mother of all gaming comics! :D

Penny Arcade: The Conflux, Part Four

Down in Gamer Life there's currently a topic entitled "Your favoured gaming fare?" However, the link you get when attempting to click on it or any replies are simply:

http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/community/gamerLife/talk
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/community/gamerLife/talk&page=1#3

The only way in which I was able to actually reply was to go into TOZ's list of recent posts and click reply from there.

Happy bug hunting! :D

Is there a way to remove a thread from our list of hidden threads?

The reason I ask is, it looks like I must have experienced some lag a few minutes ago while doing some housekeeping on my Focus page. I clicked the hide button next to a thread I wished to hide, and when it didn't disappear, I thought perhaps my wireless mouse was acting up so I clicked again. When I noticed the loading icon for the page wasn't moving, I then thought that perhaps Chrome had frozen so I clicked yet again (ok, probably several more clicks actually).

A few moments later, I was chagrined when the thread I had intended to hide along with about half a dozen others that I wanted to keep tabs on. ^_^;

Is there some way to get those back off my hidden list, I really don't want to reveal all my hidden threads as that will junk things up too much.

Ain'tcha glad you have a whole stable of free software testers? ;)

Within the next month or so, I'm planning to spin-off a new side-quest from my main campaign.

I already have an existing thread from the last time this happened, and my preference (for organizational purposes) would be to recycle it. However, the current name of the thread would need to be changed. If someone could handle this for me, I'd be appreciative.

Could someone please rename this thread:
http://paizo.com/campaigns/LimboPbPWardovesDungeonCrawlChallenge

From:
Limbo PbP: Wardove's Dungeon Crawl Challenge

To:
[PbP] Wardove's Side-Trek

Thanks for the help, and the newly implemented campaign support! :)

I just went to check the Paizo blog and discovered that it's currently displaying the Web Fiction instead (A Passage to Absalom, Chapter Two: Dry Sherry).

The URL shown when I hover over the middle tab looks correct though:
http://paizo.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Store.woa/wa/browse?path=paizo&tab= paizo

Alright, I understand the normal turning rules, but as first sentence of the optional rule for wide turns suggests, that abstraction sacrifices a bit too much verisimilitude for my liking.

Unfortunately, I've read the rules for wide turns about 5× now and even tried sketching this out on graph paper, but I'm still unable to visualize how this should look on a map grid:

Have the driver make a driving check as usual. If she succeeds at the check, she can turn the vehicle. When a vehicle makes a turn, it has a chance to make a vehicular overrun or ramming maneuver on any creature within the turning area, which is a square with sides equal to the vehicle’s length, with one vertex touching the front facing of the vehicle on the side opposite to the direction of the turn. In other words, put the square with one side running along the vehicle’s front, perpendicular to its forward facing, and another running the direction of its current forward facing. Place the square so its far corner is within the desired destination of the vehicle. If the turn is successful, the vehicle ends this movement in that area, facing toward the direction of the turn.

Could someone who has more coffee in their system perhaps please create a diagram in Excel showing how this works? I'm embarrassed to admit it, but my reading comprehension and powers of visualization are completely failing me right now. :(