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At second level, the swashbuckler has two sets of feats that I feel are somewhat redundant: Buckler Expertise and Dizzying Parry, two feats which increase the AC bonus from Parry weapon and bucklers respectively to +2, bringing them to parity with 'full' shields.

Then at 12th level, each style gets a feat granting them stances guaranteeing uptime on this defense, Buckler Dance and Storm of Parries (which are both great names!)

Each tier of these feats have the same level at which they become avaliable, the same mechanical effect and similar themes in off-handed defence.

Wouldn't it be economical to reduce these feat pairs to two, one for the AC bump, one for the stance? These four feats very much seem to be two ways to achieve the same goal. Maybe include duelling cloaks as well!

Merging them would save page space (I am not in layout I'll admit, but I think you'd save space on headers and formatting), allow for a more diversified feat selection, and allow characters to switch between bucklers and main-gauche/clan dagger etc as gear is acquired and lost, or as the situation demands (perhaps you're fighting a Rakshasa and your Buckler has a shield boss and not spikes).

In terms of comparative advantages between Parry weapons and bucklers:
Bucklers: Shield bashes are neither finesse nor agile, but you can hold wands in the same hand and have a higher damage die with bosses and spikes, and at very high level the reflecting shield is quite nice, and theoretically you can block some damage but bucklers are the most fragile of shields.
Parry weapons: tend to have versatile damage types, can use Dex to hit, can deliver precise strike damage

The way I read was that it allows the sustenance of multiple spells with a single action.

Yeah I'd have thought 2e pf would be much more the speed of a 5e preferring group than 1st ed pathfinder.

I mean, you can definately still woodchipper enemies, albeit at higher levels. Grab a Ranger, Impossible Flurry, and the Flurry Hunter tactics. Grab two sawtooth sabres.

Make six attacks at -2 each, all bur the first getting bonus damage from twin weapons.

Honestly, I think expert in unarmed defence is just.... incredibly insufficient on the monk. You've fit a whole 1 more AC than someone running around naked, and you need strength for damage, dexterity for AC, constitution for not dying and wisdom if you want ki powers.

I player a 4th level human monk, alongside a barbarian a friend of mine played, who had: slightly less speed (Faster Raging, slower not), better damage, better AC (Same while raging), same accuracy, more HP, and a THP buffer from rage.

Over him, I had really good jumping, slowfall, and could ignore difficult terrain

flurry of blows didn't turn out to be much of an advantage because while he was attacking at 10(4+4+1+1*)/5/0, I was attacking at 10(5+3+1+1*)/5/0/0 (Proficiency+Str+Item+Conditional)

I've also found combats in the playtest extremely frustrating, most recently a fire giant against a level 9 druid, Wildshaped into a Huge wolf.

It needs a 7 to hit my static of AC 27 with its sword, I need a 12 to hit with my jaws. My second attack was a hail mary, and my third attack was just fishing for 20s. Which means most of your attacks will miss, and your best attack in this case is an unfavourable coinflip, which means rolling a lot of dice for not much effect

So clearly I should be throwing spells at it, except it's lowest save (which unexpectedly is reflex) is +14. As far as I can tell, I had best possible spell DCs at 23, so it needs a 9 to save, on its weakest save. Its got a better than even chance of passing it's worst save.

At the moment, combats means whiffing a lot of attacks,band getting hit a lot, which feels really, really bad.

I recently also played IPMS, and wanted to give side feed back as well. I had a pretty miserable fight against the Manticore, and did okay against the elementals.

Fundamentally, my monk had a +9 to hit (+10 with bless or the extremely limited Ki Strikes), which just didn't cut it against the 20AC of the manticore and large elementals, having your most accurate attack be a coinflip I found was incredibly dispiriting, especially when your best option for most turns in a combat is Flurry+Strike+Strike, with the two Strikes needing 20 to hit, (19 with backswing)

I also tried to climb the wall and drop attack the Manticore but flubbed the climb check. I flubbed a lot of rolls that session.

Lord Fyre wrote:

What do people have against the Alchemist 1/Barbarian 1/Bard 1/Cleric 1/Druid 1/Fighter 1/Monk 1/Paladin 1/Ranger 1/Rogue 1/Sorcerer 1/Wizard 1 character?

Ah, yes, that great military figure, Major Undecided! :-)

I mean, I wouldn't call someone with 4/11 BAB a great military anything. :p

How does power attack stack with magical weapons? Is a character power attacking with a +1 mace swinging for 3d8 or 4d8?

A d d i t i o n a l R e a c t i o n s!

I'm very much happy with what I've heard in this blog, fighter looks like it's going to be.... fun?!

To be fair, I very much doubt the potion misses your face, or that you're inside of dino b6 the armor, it'd be much more sensical if you simply didn't get the magical effect of those actions without resonance.

As for analysing the tidbits that have been released so far, can we not doomsday the changes by plopping them into PF1E, without the context of the rest of the system? It's not building well-founded hypothess on 2e. An edition change implies broad, systemic changes from 1e.

It's all well and good to say "hit by ten+=crit is broken, because of a 1e magus arcana", but the magus isn't even in 2e, let alone that specific Arcana, or what rules there there may be regarding touch attacks ability to critical hit, seems like a farly direct consequence to account for.

He looks like he was 60 already in PF1 era.

No modern medicine and a father accused of heresy could do that for you.

The Katana, God of Swords meme will never die, it seems xD.

Personaly, I'd like a norms check on the names and some weapon's damage types(Warhammers should deal B&P, for instance), but by abd large its a "yeah, sure, whatever" thing for me which niggles every now and then.

There are two different things bung talked about in this thread, and even in the OP's post.

One is veracity with the real world, which I weigh negative to neutral in a fantasy game.

The other is adherence to current historiographical norms, which I'd weight neutral to positive, if done sensibly.

Realism is full plate armor making you immune to slashing attacks, historiographical normality is calling a double edged straight blade of 70-80cm for wielding I one hand an arming sword, rather than a Longsword.

That said, we also don't need the armoury to have detailed breakdowns of the entire Oakeshott typology.

Quote:

After making the big choices that define your character...

quote in reference to class, "race," and background.

This fills me with dread. With a few other subtle mentions, this is a backwards design philosophy. Characters should not be defined by mechanics. The character should be defined narratively, with mechanics chosen afterwards that best represent the character concept. I.E. I have a character that learned magic in a school like a wizard, but focused on mastering spells so she could cast whichever spell she knows as long as she has enough energy for it. Best mechanic for that is sorcerer, but if the sorcerer mechanics are too tightly tied to the whole "magic from the blood" concept, it makes it harder to portray this spontaneous wizard character properly.

I find their backwardness on this to be a problem, because it probably means they'll tie flavor and mechanics together so tightly, that it'll be hard to bend the mechanics to anything else, which basically means a serious reduction in flexibility outside they tiny little narrative they've chosen for us. Frankly, Pathfinder already has this problem, but it is not that bad. I'm afraid of them making it worse.

I might be wrong, but I doubt it.

Mechanics and narrative are intertwined. A character that cant hit or do damage in combat will struggle with fulfilling a traditional heroic champion narrative. An illiterate barbarian is going to have trouble with being a scholar.

I like that it is more complex than 5e, but less than so than parts of 3.5, and it could be a little simpler.

I like that characters evolve mechanically and refine their identity as they level up, through feats and menu optioslike rogue talents and alchemist discoveries.

I like building mechanics puzzle characters, like the dwarf with the dorn-dergar which cleaves every enemy in 35ft foot square.

I like the diversity of options and the multitude of classes: hellknights and investigators and slayers and magi (oh my!)

I don't get to play in Golarion that much, but I like the diversity of the setting: ifferent cultures, non-human peoples that aren't just real-life ethnicities or cultural groups with different bodies. I like that LGBT inclusivity is built into not just the culture but the divine metaphysics.

I like the wealth of 3PP options and the freelancers that work in the player companion line.

If it's a limited set and I could only choose between a handful, based on my class, yes. mostly because every character in the class more uniform instead of more unique. If there a ways in PF2 to change that set completely and to pick reactions that fits the character best, this action economy system would actually be quite nice (not nice enough for a whole new edition, but nice enough to use that rule in a real PF game)

...amazing, you'd resent being given something new if it didn't give you enough choice, even though it's free?

Also based on the podcast, the fighter had two, one of which was only useful if you had a shield, I'd be surprised if they expected polearm users or archers to pick it up.

Oh THAT I got. And I stand by my first reaction that this reaction system is limiting. So let's say I play that rogue, I see that enemy drink that potion and all I can do as reaction is a steal attempt? Where are the choices? Maybe I want to shoot at the bottle, maybe I want to take advantage of the fact the enemy is occupied to retreat or attack. If I'm limited to only one possible reaction or a short list of possible reactions that is the same for every other rogue, what makes my rogue stand out? Limiting the roleplay aspect of a roleplaying game is never a good idea, even more so if I seemingly still have unlimited choices of ACTIONS I can take. "My three actions: retreat, taunt, juggle... no wait, attack, move, write a poem...no wait, paint a portait of my enemy, crush it, and hear the lamentation of his woman..."

...it's no more restrictive RP wise than an immediate action. We also dingy know what a given clclasses reactions are or how many they get.

What if in 1e they gave every class a set of immediate actions they could take. Would you say that is restricting rolplay?

Is charging not a thing anymore (as in gaining a +2 to hit and -2 to AC) since you now can move, attack?

The fighter had a thing which let him move 2x his speed and make an attack as two of his actions, but I don't think there were bonuses or penalties. Didn't have to move straight either!

It's really easy to end up removing any meaningful distinction between ability scores this way, ending up in de facto 4E-land.

Ability diversity was not 4e's problem. 4e's problem was that it pidgeonholed classes excessively.

Ability score divesity can be used to differentiate classes and make them interestingly and meaningfully distinct from each other.

I'd like to see a little more, if not accuracy, then adherence to historograhical norms in the naming of arms and armor.

Ohhh, neat, one of the reasons I stiated collecting flipmats is how many times can I reuse the same castle?

This, I am instantly enthusiastic for.

Caste based themes make sense for Tau, that's a good idea.

Regarding the vision, in the 3e codex at least, I think, they have sharper long range vision, but their eyes adjust to distance changes slower that a human.

The other option I can see would be to set the tau up like the lashunta. They get a +2 dex, amd then each cast gets an additional good and bad stat, amd a different skill bonus

Fire: +Con, -wis, perception or piloting
Earth: +int, -2, engineering
Water: +cha, str, culture
Air: +dex(+4 total), -Str, acrobatics or piloting

Hi James, one of the things that Pathfinder has done that I've really liked is splitting Kytons off as their own "species" of evil outsiders separate from devils.

Another thing I've noticed is that there are many more 'species' of fiends than celestials (proably because fiends generally make better enemies?)

Which leads me to the question of: has splitting Devas off from Angels to create a new race of celestials Ever been considered?

Genie Binder seems a little...broken? Not like broken strong or broken weak, I actually quite like it.

But it's got some weird inconsistencies. On the table, The special column mentions you get spellcasting advancement at 2nd, 4th and 5th level. 3/5 is fine, IMO, but usually spellcasting advancing is usually indicated in it's on column on class tables, is this just a layout error?

Further, Genie mastery says you get a Genie Eidolon (which is Rad, IMO), or " If she selects spellcasting, she gains the
benefts of her aligned spellcasting class feature (see below) at
3rd level, in addition to the other indicated levels."

But there isn't a listed aligned spellcasting feature. Was this taken out in development, and the reference didn't get mentioned? Did it get accidentally excised in layout?

Some rampant speculation on what it might have been:
*Continues to advance a Summoner's SM/Gate SLAs (Maybe)
*Functions as the Evangelist's aligned class feature but only for a spellcasting class (Almost certainly not, could net you 8/5 spellcasting?!)
*Bumps you up to 5/5 casting.

Also, the Genie Binding class seems really weird, getting a first lavel Eidolon at 12th level if you're not a summoner seems like a huge trap option I don't know why you'd take unless you were a Summoner and got the stacking.

All that being said, Earthshadow Rogue and the rogue talents associated with them are beautiful and I'm definately gonna need to play myself a dwarven unchained rogue at somepoint!

The Great Beyond actually has mention of a Chaotic Neutral Lich living on the negative energy plane, by name of Xegirius Malikar, although that was a PF Chronicles book, and may not still be canon?.

Okay, so, draft two!

Sword Saint

Soul's Sword
At 1st level, the sword saint selects a specific, individual piercing or slashing melee weapon as his Soul's Sword (such as the longspear inherited from their mother). The sword saint becomes proficient with than weapon, henceforth referred to as their Soul's Sword, and always treats his Soul's Sword as a monk weapon.

This ability replaces the monk's unarmed strike ability and his bonus feats.

Royal Blade
At 1st level, a monk gains Perfect Strike as a bonus feat, even if he does not meet the prerequisites. A sword saint may only use Perfect strike with his Soul's Sword, and may do so even if this is not one of the weapons usually useable with Perfect Strike.
At 10th level, the monk can roll his attack roll three times and take the highest result. If one of these rolls is a critical threat, the monk must choose one of his other two rolls to use as his confirmation roll. This ability replaces the monk's stunning fist ability.

Sword Saint Arts
At 4th level, the sword saint may select the following ki powers in addition to those available to unchained monk's:

• Slice space (Su): the sword saint's connection to his blade allows him to flense the fabric of the universe as he cuts his enemy. This functions as the bladed dash spell, except that the sword saint does not get a circumstance bonus to hit. Using this ability is a standard action which consumes 2 ki points.
  
• Cutting non-cutting (Su): 'A man who finds pleasure in the result of cutting is the most hateful, crawling creature there is. A man who finds pleasure in the act of cutting is an artisan.' As long as the sword saint has at least one point in his ki pool, the sword saint may deal nonlethal damage without taking a penalty to his attack rolls.
  
• Double weapon flurry (Ex): If the sword saint's Soul's Sword is a double weapon, the sword saint may make further additional attacks when making a flurry of blows. When the monk spends a ki point to make an additional attack over those normally granted by flurry of blows, the sword saint may make additional attacks with the off-hand head of their Soul's Sword. Each off-hand attack is taken at a cumulative -5 to hit, and you may only take as many offhand attacks as your flurry of blows would grant you. In addition, when you use this ability, you take a -2 to hit in place of the usual penalties for two weapon fighting.
  

Blade Techniques
At 5th level, a sword saint can learn one type of style strike. Whenever he makes a flurry of blows, he can designate one of his attacks with his Soul's Sword to be a Blade Technique.
This attack is resolved as normal, but it has an additional effect depending on the type of strike chosen. At 9th level, and every 4 levels thereafter, a sword saint learns an additional blade technique. He must choose which style strike to apply before the attack roll is made. At 15th level, he can designate up to two of his attacks with his Soul's Sword each round as a blade technique, and each one can be a different type. The sword saint can choose from any of the following blade techniques.

• Opening the Way: With a carefully placed strike, the monk cuts through his enemies defences. An enemy hit with this style strike is flatfooted against the sword saint's next attack
  
• Pommel smash: The sword saint brings the pommel or haft around to strike the enemy in the head. If the attack hits, it deals damage equal to a club wielded in the offhand appropriate to the wielder's size, and the creature must take a fortitude save with a DC equal to 10+ the sword saint's base attack bonus or be staggered for one round
  
• Steel Net: By weaving a net of steel, the sword-saint may ward off blows. If this attack hits, he gains a dodge bonus to AC as if he had fought defensively as a full round action.
  
• Broad Slash: Carving wide arcs with their blade, the sword saint make strike twice with one blow the attack hits, the sword saint may make an addition attack against an enemy adjacent to the target of this style strike at the same attack bonus -5. This blade technique may only be used with a slashing weapon. If used with a weapon which slashing damage and another weapon damage type (such as a morningstar), these attacks deal half damage.
  

Unceasing violence
At 13th level, so long as the sword saint has at least one point in his ki pool, he ignores the penalties associated with wielding a broken weapon. Additionally, if a weapon wielded by the sword saint would be destroyed, the weapon's destruction is delayed until the sword saint relinquishes the weapon or uses their last point of ki.
This ability replaces tongue of sun and moon.

***

Overall, the class definitely needs some more style strikes, and possibly some more unique ki powers/Sword Saint Arts.

I've played a magus, and eldritch knight, a magus and an ordained templar, and I'm playing an investigator. I'm not particularly sad at the absence of prepared casters.

That said, I think that C/MD is caused by the spells themselves, not any of the implemented methods of casting them.

Also, I ran the numbers at one point, and I think a 20th level Psion gets as many or more manifests of ML20 powers than a 20th level wizard gets spell slots? Then adhesive the psion gets many fewer powers known.

Owen K. C. Stephens wrote:

Like the Pathfinder RPG, Starfinder uses 'psychic' rather than 'psionic' as the term for mental magic.

That said, I'd be stunned if Dreamscarred doesn't do a psionic Starfinder-compatible book.

To me they'll always mean the same thing conceptually.

I actually think they're quite different. Psionics is power is from mentally contacting deeper into yourself.

Psychic magic is about mentally contacting externalities. The spiritualist contacts phantoms, the occultist draws his power from the emotional residue off of items, the Medium contacts spirits, etc.

Back on subject!

Regarding the crafting, is it 4 hours per 1000 you're spending on UBP, or 4 hours flat time? One of the big problems I had with crafting in Pathfinder is that once you're crafting over level 10 it's "Well, just had a big payday, time to spend two months crafting!"

Back on the subjects of weapons, I was a little worried about specialisation just being a +2 to hit, or a +2 now, +2 in a few levels, but I'm really glad that it's smooth, continuous scaling. I'm also really glad that Weapon focus applies to broad weapon groups, especially with the focus on multiple weapons per character to suit different situations.

Also, re Long Vs. Dueling sword, wasn't it mentioned that only Advanced melee weapons get the full specialisation scaling? So I'm guessin the dueling sword is d6+1/2 level from specialisation. Maybe a bonus on feints?

Alex's build doesn't account for full wealth by level, you can still throw a ring of Protection and Amulet of Natural Armor on there. It's a build stub, not the whole thing.

He also points out that you can two hand with the sword lord PRC now, which I'd missed in my earlier post. Which is another change from PoP.

Overall, I think the changes to the Aldori material are positive, taken as a whole, with the new material being mixed.

Thanks for the clarification, and yeah, its a really nice PRC!

Anyone have any insight on the "Enhanced Morale" Prereq for Redistributed Might? I can't find any other reference to it, was it a feat that got cut or something?

Crossposting the question here on suggestion.

So, Redistributed Might from Adventurer's Guide is a neat looking feat, my only question is regarding the Prerequisites. Con 13 or wis 13, Enhanced Morale, EWP (Aldori Dueling Sword), Iron Will, Base Attack Bonus +4.

....so what is Enhanced Morale? A search in my PDF doesn't turn up any results other than that instance, and it doesn't have a .

Is Enhanced Morale supposed to be a feat? It's capitalized like it is one. Does it refer to the fact that it works by changing the target of enhancement and morale bonuses?

Does anyone have any insight or clarity on this one?

The only fhing i dont like the sound of is weapon focus being a feat, but thats predicated on it being basically the same as 3.5, and the versatile focus even makes up for it a little. I paused on the implication of no more feat trees, because there are good feat trees (like many style feats), and feat trees which I consider bad (Like Greater Whip Mastery) But sweet mothers of mercy I love everything else in this.

Two good saves? 4+int ranks per level? Further skill consolidation? Non-spellcasting magic incorporated into 'mundane' classes? The phrase "plasma immolation"? Save me Owen-one Kenobi, you're my only hope!

"Obozaya, no!"

"OBOZAYA YES!"

The 'unarmed only' restriction is solely on A, as it's a restriction granted by the Vicious Stomp feat, and the restriction does not transfer over to B, because the ability granting the AoO(Paired Opportunists) does not have the same restriction..

Bestiary 6 looks great, the only thing that makes me pause is the idea that Taniwha prefer tropical lakes and rivers.

Taniwha. Maori origin. New Zealand. Tropical. Wat?

Iirc, the feat was printed right next to Heritor Knight in paths of the righteous, which is strongly dedicated to standard action attacks and vital strikes.

In almost all regards I prefer Pathfinder, however I liked that 3.5 had PRCs such as pious templar which granted casting whole cloth.

I also preferred the combat maneuver feats in 3.5, when Greater and Improved trip was acounted for in just improved trip, for instance.

(Monks, for instance get improved trip as a bonus feat, but not greater trip.)

Tandem Tactics:
Prerequisites: BAB +6, Outflank
Benefit: While adjacent to an ally with this feat, enemies which you both threaten are considered flanked for the purposes of your attacks, and you do not provide cover to this enemy from attacks made by your allies with this feat.

((Basically, this feat is meant to negate the penalties associated with through an ally with a reach weapon, and not make five foot corridors suck so much for multi-melee parties. and the flanking represents the fact that the enemies aren't sure where the attack is going to come from.))