RiverMesa's page

All three of these sound like bangers, and both avenger and vindicator sound like exciting takes on being an offensive-minded divine character.

The Infinite changes are still somewhat frustrating, but understandable enough - it was the combo of those and the sudden CUP-FCP rugsweep that really stung, but this is very appreciated, at least.

The cultivator dedication grants a domain spell from Divine Mysteries which doesn't release until November...

Yeah, adapt self is from Gods & Magic, so it should work (gotta adjust the traits, dropping transmutation and adding presumably manipulate and concentrate, but that's about it).

RiverMesa wrote:

Arita wrote:

TOZ wrote:

emky wrote:

The reverse (that is updating the PF2 APs to PF1 rules)

Fixed that.

Even that wording feels wrong... I'd say "converting" instead, mostly because "downdating" isn't a word!

To borrow from the software development world, the term you're looking for is "backporting".

Anyway, for my part, while I hope that some kind of carveout is quickly provided such that tools like Starfinder's Hephaistos aren't forced to choose between going back and scrubbing all the Paizo IP or abandoning the 1e site altogether, it is deeply frustrating that in about a month, 1e players of either edition of the game (who maybe aren't wholly on board with the 2e games) are basically SOL in terms of providing community support (short of the extremely limiting "pure OGL products that are neither Infinite- nor even Compatible-branded")... Or basically illegally smuggling homebrew?

Sure, there's plenty existing material for both games, and I get that Paizo doesn't want to touch the mess that the OGL has suddenly become... But jettisoning the 1e audiences in the process is quite the alienating feeling.

Folk can still make products for 1E, it just can't have setting material in it at all. This isn't a new thing, and is how PF1 products worked before Infinite. If you want an example, look at Legendary Games Adventure Path plug-in series. They just use things like "Goddess of Dreams" instead of Desna.

Gothic Adventure Path Plug-In wrote:

You will see us use phrases such as “Gothic Campaign” instead of title of the most recent Adventure Path. Or you may see us use the names “The Professor” or “The Professor’s Daughter” or “Immortal Principality” or “Goddess of Valor” instead of the proper names of specific characters or places from those adventures or gods from the world setting. While we can create compatible products under the Open Game License, we still have to be respectful of certain content Paizo owns. Because we want to

...

Right, I did also misread things somewhat and thought the 'new' Compatibility license would exclude being used along with the 1e OGL material (it's not, that's still on the table, if published via the mainline DriveThru store or another avenue) - though in fairness the table on the licensing page kind of does not make that particularly clear.

It's still a pretty significant regression for the 1e community, though.

TOZ wrote:

emky wrote:

The reverse (that is updating the PF2 APs to PF1 rules)

Fixed that.

Even that wording feels wrong... I'd say "converting" instead, mostly because "downdating" isn't a word!

To borrow from the software development world, the term you're looking for is "backporting".

Anyway, for my part, while I hope that some kind of carveout is quickly provided such that tools like Starfinder's Hephaistos aren't forced to choose between going back and scrubbing all the Paizo IP or abandoning the 1e site altogether, it is deeply frustrating that in about a month, 1e players of either edition of the game (who maybe aren't wholly on board with the 2e games) are basically SOL in terms of providing community support (short of the extremely limiting "pure OGL products that are neither Infinite- nor even Compatible-branded")... Or basically illegally smuggling homebrew?

Sure, there's plenty existing material for both games, and I get that Paizo doesn't want to touch the mess that the OGL has suddenly become... But jettisoning the 1e audiences in the process is quite the alienating feeling.

I have no sources for this, and lots of gut feeling, so take this with a tablespoon of salt, but the most I've heard about starship playtesting was that Paizo was going to be playtesting something that isn't a class in the near-ish future. No idea where that rumor came from, but if it's true then doing a starship playtest would make a ton of sense there, especially if both games are working on some kind of more robust vehicle subsystem. PF2E works on naval combat while SF2E does space combat, etc.

Luis Loza over on the Pathfinder side (among other people I think) have at least floated the idea that a big enough subsystem might take the place of a class playtest (or take place alongside it, as the mech combat did in SF1) - funnily enough it was commonly floated for a theoretical mythic rules playtest, which did not happen even though mythic rules are coming to PF2 soon.

But starship combat feels like such a load-bearing subsystem for Starfinder that I'd be stunned if Paizo didn't have a public playtest for it, whenever that happens.

A 2e Evolutionist feels like it could fulfill both the shifter and synthesist summoner fantasies that PF2 players have been clamoring for, on top of being one of the more flavorful (if rather late) SF1 classes - I hope we see it in SF2 relatively soon.

There is indeed full-body art of Ameiko (as Empress Amatatsu Ameiko) in the Minkai section.

Darklands get a section, with descriptions of several subterranean nations within.

Each section is about 8 pages, though some that incorporate a neighboring non-nation geographic region (like Minkai and the Forest of Spirits, or Xidao and the oceans) are longer on account of including the latter.

There's no bespoke ancestry descriptions (though all the ancestries we know are coming in the followup book are mentioned and integrated throughout) - those might be in the Character Guide.

Page 134 - Primal Summons druid feat - The descriptive text mentions the classic four elements but omits wood and metal, which are listed in the actual primal summons order spell now, so that should probably be updated to mention all six elements.

While the situation on the PF side is somewhat different since all those classes already exist on the engine and 'only' need revisions, it might potentially echo the Remaster situation of the classes being split across two core books, even if some of the PF2R Player Core 2 classes could be deemed classic or essential in the current day and age (like champion, barbarian, and sorcerer).

Mechanic and technomancer being pushed back to a Starfinder Player Core 2 (or a new Character Operations Manual, depending on which kind of presentation and naming scheme SF2 ends up going with) does seem like an entirely plausible reality, if a mildly surprising one at first.

I'd be on board with a Gunner rename, which while technically close to the PF2 Gunslinger, does have a very distinct vibe that better conveys the new "big gun" focus.
It doesn't account for the 2h melee playstyle admittedly, and "melee Gunner build" feels a bit like an oxymoron relative to "melee Soldier build", but who knows.

Xenocrat wrote:

Man, if you're mad about the SF2 Soldier not being mechanically or functionally similar to the SF1 Soldier, I can't wait to see how people react to the Operative (it's not a skill monkey anymore!), Solarian, and all the spellcasters.

The Operative isn't a skill monkey anymore? Are you sure?

I mean, it's not a tiny god of skills anymore, but I had been under the impression that it still had a larger skills budget than the other classes.

Thurston Hillman stated as much on Know Direction Beyond recently.

There's the Hero Point Deck which has additional Hero Point uses and effects, but it's a relatively recent accessory and I haven't heard much about it.

Hero Points always struck me as a little awkward in how disconnected they feel from the rest of the system (no ability, spell or feat references them, best as I can tell), and how GM-dependent they can be to regularly obtain (either because your GM forgets to hand them out regularly, or isn't easily convinced by your Heroic RP - though my GMs have thankfully been reasonable about them, but I know I've been a little forgetful in my brief time as GM).

Runelords are one of the most iconic Pathfinder things so there's a good chance they might either issue errata or reprint it in a new form in some other future source - I believe an idea was tossed out that the archetype would be rejigged to lean into the sins the schools were based on (pride instead of illusion, wrath instead of evocation, etc.).

While I don't have first-hand experience with it myself, I have been thinking about how PF2 Kingmaker's kingdom-building and warfare rules can serve as a conceptual blueprint for how SF2 might go about handling building starships and space combat.

Kingdom building has a lot in common with building a character (especially in that 2e incarnation, with kingdom feats and skills and attributes and whatnot), something that Paizogame players are already accustomed to and generally enjoy on its own merits, and they too follow that same 1-20 level advancement that can make for a smooth mathematical progression; Obviously, kingdoms and starships are structured very differently (I would expect much more in the way of ship 'upgrades' than ship 'feats', hearkening to the bevvy of options that SF1 provides, even if a lot of them were really fiddly and minute for modern design standards), but it would make for something that feels like a natural extension of the existing game language than an entire bespoke mini-game that only sort of connects to the existing ruleset - incidentally, this is the route that a friend and GM of mine took when developing her own naval ship combat system for PF2 (when the normal vehicle rules proved insufficient), so that's a data point towards that being a workable model at least.

If some extra narrative elements can be put in this way, like ship backgrounds (scrap-built, inherited, company-owned, gifted, hijacked, salvaged, bought from a shady dealership, etc.), then that's all the more fun.

And here's the whole thing!

Locking in my Demigod and Animist guesses, but I suppose we'll find out in 15 minutes!

From Paizo's IG, we have another piecemeal teaser of one of the iconics (with another few to follow at the top of every hour, I'm wagering a guess).

The Animist theory is looking increasingly solid, I'd say!

Demigod and Animist are my personal called shots here, we'll see if they hold up!

Unexpectedly, the tail end of the Remaster preview panel at GenCon mentioned that a frog-people ancestry called the trypki (spelling might be off) are also in this, which are presumably a renamed grippli.
(Gnolls were still called that instead of kholo but I'm unsure whether that's a slip-up or if they've managed to find a way to hold onto the name.)

No news on what the new versatile heritage is, or anything else about the book though.

DnD 3e lasted 8 years between 2000 and 2008 (split that 3:5 if you wanna treat 3.0 and 3.5 separately, I guess).
DnD 4e lasted 6 years between 2008 and 2014.

A 2017-2025 lifecycle is only 2 years behind something like PF1, which was kinda ahead of the curve compared to your average RPG anyway (and PF1 was already struggling sales-wise in those final years apparently).

On one hand, I'm stoked for Starfinder to inherit the good bits of PF2, like the three action economy and functional encounter balance.

On the other hand, I am gonna miss how SF1 did diverge from PF1 (and how SF2 seems like it will not be able to do so, in order to maintain PF2 rules compatibility, unless Paizo is willing to walk this back), and how it is liable to inherit PF2's own flaws (get ready for "casters feel bad to play": three-action science-fantasy edition!) .
I'll also miss quirks like EAC/KAC, light/heavy/powered armor, stamina and resolve, class and build flexibility, and the very oddball species.

(And I'm glad I am not alone in this sentiment across both here and some other places online.)

I'm still more excited than not, but it's not without caveats.

Drukra volunteered to Oprak's experimental geokinetic soldier program, implanted with a tiny splinter supposedly taken from the Onyx Key itself, acting as her kinetic gate to the Plane of Earth.

A walking font of inexhaustible elemental energy with great combat potential, the program's inherently magical (if not arcane) nature meant that she never quite got the support (or the respect) of her fellows clad in plain worked steel, so she eventually struck out on her own as an elemental mercenary instead, fighting up close in earth-armor, with a disciplined military bend to her kinetic powers.

I believe they said that a docuiment with updated terminology and such will be released around GenCon, yes.

Casting raise dead on this thread, since minotaurs being introduced as a playable ancestry (alongside things like hobgoblins and kholo being made core in Player Core 2 next summer) has reminded me about how much potential this region has again - and the more time passes by without major developments in the area, the more I get itchy for it considering how much it's been set up as a metaplot threat for the Inner Sea as a whole.

And surrounding the Remaster wizard schools, the idea that was floated at PaizoCon of an Ustalavic school of electric+ghost magic as a bespoke player option also sounded incredibly cool...

To me, awakened animals seem like they have more in common narratively with an ancestry like poppets or leshies (where they're singular individuals or at best forming small secluded communities), than with any given animal-folk ancestry like lizardfolk, ratfolk or catfolk (who have entire well-established cultures and nations unto themselves).

I am personally hoping for both elemental (primal) and genie (arcane) eidolons in that section, but there has not been a confirmation either way.

Is athamaru a new name for locathah, or are they a new ancestry that happens to live alongside them in Xidao?

Either way, this is a solid selection (people will love awakened animals for sure), and I adore the crewmates (good on me for guessing Ten was a mechanic!) - Ken's concept art is always a delight, especially with all the notes.

The insect person being a klinkoi would make further sense as they're portrayed (best as I can tell) as the airship's machinist, and klinkois were namedropped in the context of Arcadia's industrialized Three Craters area.

The maybe-locathah's design feels very different from all the past portrayals though, closed to an ulat-kini almost. That said, Paizo has been getting very divergent with some of the PF2 ancestries' designs, and they would pair very well with Tian Xia and Xidao.

The badger person is a complete mystery, but would track for the brand-new ancestry, if we treat klinkois as already-existing on account of that brief lore teaser.

Yeah, a lot of people seem to be confusing "rogues have martial weapon proficiency now" for "rogues can sneak attack with any martial weapon now".

The "agile or finesse" (for melee, at least) restriction is still very much gonna be there, this will just make it easier to do with something like hatchets or other weapons you previously had to scrounge weird archetypes or ancestry feats for.

I'm very curious what the fate of the owlbears will be (they are moderately iconic to D&D at this point, and even a bit of a namesake for the uncommonly-used subgenre term "owlbear fantasy" that games like D&D and Patfinder represent) - I suppose another kind of dangerous hybrid forest animal is an obvious swap, though I hope it's more than "instead of owl-bears, it's hawk-wolves now!".

I, for one, am glad that cavern elves will no longer feel like a contextless elf heritage, despite being right there in the CRB/PC1 alongside the likes of woodland elf and arctic elf - looking forward to seeing some ayindilar buddies soon!

Demonskunk wrote:

The Painted Oryx wrote:

Demonskunk wrote:

Woah, $60 per book, and you need at least THREE of them!?

$180 is a BIG ASK for the bare basics you need to play the dang game.

All the rules are available for free on Archives of Nethys! So you really don't need to spend any money. $60 for a beautifully illustrated hardcover book is perfectly reasonable I think!

Like, you're not wrong, but I'm still upset.

P2.0

Core Rulebook $60
Gamemastery Guide $50
Advanced Player's Guide $50
Bestiary 1 $50

$210

P2.1
Player Core $60
Player Core 2 $60
GM Core $60
Monster Core $60

$240

That's without getting into the other expansions added and reworked like Treasure Vault.

All of the new Remaster Core books will be getting pocket editions at least (albeit a few months after the hardbacks), plus the cheaper PDF and entirely free online SRD options.

I think they even mentioned offhandedly the possibility of a Remaster Humble Bundle eventually, but that's probably a late 2023 prospect at the absolute earliest.

Sekmin seem to be the same in both plural and singular, but 'anadis' and 'iruxis' both pop up in LO Mwangi Expanse as a plural form, it seems. (With anadi and iruxi as the singulars - there is no 'anad' or 'irux'.)

What's especially curious about this one is the final line, no longer mentioning the OGL or The World's Oldest Roleplaying Game.

Given recent events and announcements, I take it this one might no longer be under the Open Game License (but presumably not under the ORC yet either)?

I think Paizo has generally wanted to strike out in their own direction away from WotC's, and directly copying from them just because they now legally can (especially when they already provide similar enough options of their own) isn't something I imagine them doing.

Likewise I wouldn't expect dragonborn or other post-4e/5e-isms to happen now either.

3rd party publishers can go ham though, but debatably they always could already.

I've been curious about this for months now - assuming this has the player's guide baked in like the Abomination Vaults hardcover did, is the provided map of Tian Xia the same or is it perhaps updated in any way?

Resolving what could suddenly be either an existential threat to their business (or, if all goes well, a huge swing in their favor) does feel like a higher priority over a rulebook which is still some time away, IMO.

Quote:

What pitfalls do you perceive in the class

The biggest problem with the Witch as I see it is it kind of is stuck with a worst of all worlds approach to magic, while lacking a headlining feature of their own that really stands out.

It has the spell slots of a druid or cleric, but the chassis and preparation system of a wizard. They also have probably the worst starting focus spell of any spellcaster. So an arcane witch can kind of feel like a wizard without as many spells and a primal witch can feel like a squishier druid with like 10% of the spells known without spending money.

Familiars also kind of suck, but I think it's best to just treat it as mostly a ribbon feature. Many of the Witches I've seen in actual play more or less treat their familiar as nonexistent outside a couple helpful master abilities and RP. Some of them even forget they have a familiar at all.

As for fixes... turn Phase Familiar into a level 1 feat and give them Basic Lesson for free instead so they can have an actual focus spell (while preserving Basic Lesson so they can grab a second if they want).

Quote:

remove the 1 hex per round limitation

I'd prefer to change it to restricting the same hex to once per round. I can understand when they were writing it why they didn't want someone just casting Evil Eye three times in a round, but having your core options be mutually exclusive with each other is kinda lame.

I'd also like to see an option somewhere (a feat? A freebie at level 5 or 6?) to give Witches access to more hex cantrips. This would broaden a witch's options and help them lean into the idea that Hexes are their thing. It feels wrong to me that Bards get so many excellent class cantrip options, while Witches just get one and a lot of them are kind of mediocre tbh.

Much of what you mention here, including starting with a Basic Lesson and having Phase Familiar as a feat instead (and possibly also easier access to more hex cantrips, I can't quite remember), is done by the very popular* Pathfinder Infinite book, Witches+.

* - as far as PF2 3pp stuff is concerned anyway, it ain't outselling Paizo probably.

Penny dreadfuls go back to the mid-19th century, not to mention all the other aforementioned historical examples - and Golarion is, on average, literate enough that it wouldn't feel out of place, especially in cities.

The aforementioned 1sp-20gp price range feels right to me as well, especially as pure roleplay items.

Paizo's own Jason Bulmahn is also working on Eventide (self-described as "medium fantasy", with a gloomy vibe), and some Paizo freelancers are likewise working on The Luminant Age, a weird/swashbuckling fantasy setting.

I appreciated that it was a mature setting with opportunities for conflict.

Mwangi Expanse kinda felt like a splat where everyone was holding hands and singing campfire songs while making friendship bracelets.

Ah yes, with such cozy summer vacation places like [checks notes] tyrannical Mzali, cutthroat Bloodcove, violent Usaro, unstable Vidrian, and all the jungle ruins crawling with demons and cruel fey and monsters.

I love both regions, and it's true that the Impossible Lands have a darker tone than the Mwangi Expanse, but it's not all sunshine and roses on the western coast either.

Anyway, to get on topic:

I appreciate how the Impossible Lands put all the fun and bizarre Pathfinder elements (including many of the weirder classes and ancestries) in one spot and make it all work. It's where the (in my opinion unfairly) maligned idea of an adventuring party of 'freaks' (nonhuman ancestries, odd versatile heritages, classes that stray far from the European fantasy mold) not only fits, but borders on 'normal'.

And of course, all of that exists against a novel cultural blend of East African and South Asian inspirations (not something you often see together), and some pretty complex narrative conflicts, with a whole cold war brewing, social inequalities and injustices in major cities, and colonial legacies everywhere you go.

Try the Bandcamp version.

Several of the mid- and high-level 3-part APs for Starfinder feature several possible hooks for PCs who partook in past APs - though Devastation Ark has the most explicit ties to Dead Suns, and likewise Drift Hackers is a bit more linked to Drift Crashers than something like Against the Aeon Throne (but has hooks for both).

PF2 could try a similar approach, where an 11-20 AP has some transitional hooks for some past APs - though currently the only remotely geographically or thematically neighboring 3-parters with a shared followup would be Abomination Vaults and Sky King's Tomb, and even that is a maybe given we only know the premise of book 1 for the latter.

Whether in remote reaches of Tian Xia, or in Arcadia, I'd very much love a rabbit ancestry, not least so I can make a Pathfinder version of Miyamoto Usagi (of Usagi Yojimbo fame) - or a Razatlani rabbit-person with some inspiration rooted in the Aztec Centzon Tōtōchtin.

From the playtest kineticist blog teaser, we know that metal genies are seemingly called zuhras (with the high-ranking title of damaj) - both names seemm wholly made-up (albeit still rooted in Arabic, given the Google search results), so I'd expect both wood and metal geniekin to be similarly original.

I've long been a proponent of Golden Road kasathas - doubly so if you pull on some of their traditional attire that Starfinder gave them, as per this CRB art (or this art of the Idari from Pact Worlds).

Four arms continue to be a problem, though...

Easy: A kobold heritage that makes you Medium-sized.

While Paizo themselves likely wouldn't call them swolbolds, you know half the community would.

Final render of this is up, it seems.

Now, I'm not at all a physical, let alone special edition, book collector, but it is interesting me to that this is the first special edition mainline rulebook that is blue rather than red (LO books are ones that tend to get the blue covers).

It looks nice, and even nicer in person, I'm sure, but it might peeve those looking for a consistent look to their bookshelf.

Not to mention all the other namedropped metaregions on the Arcadia map in Guns & Gears - Primal League, Land of Northern Lakes, Salt Stretch, and Lands of Second Souls (which got further elaboration in Book of the Dead with the grappling spirit, and then again with one of the incident reports in Dark Archive which gave us an insight into Tomalán, and the Reborn Soul background).

That said, several of Luis's responses seem to openly confirm that there isn't a Golden Road book in the works (at least not for next year) - between that and some other evidence, I'm still convinced that it's Tian Xia, but if I get proven wrong then so be it.