Scarablob's page

I once again have to bring the Giant Wasp animal companion to the table. It have a 40 feet fly speed. It's advanced manoeuver take to action to either fly 15 feet and strike, or strike then fly 15 feet. It's worse than simply flying and striking normally, and it's not clear what was the intent at first, if it was supposed to be a single action, if it was supposed to not trigger reaction, there's no indication.

Likewise, the "elemental familiar" feat of the kineticist is extremely unclear. It say that it give you an "elemental familiar" with an element tied to one of your own... and that's it. No indication if it give you a familiar with the elemental trait (without needing to take a familiar ability), if it give you one with the "elemental" familiar ability (nor wether it give it to you for free or if it take one of your familiar ability slot or if you also need resistance as usual), or if it give you a specific elemental familiar as the page reference next to the term seems to indicate (which would explain why unlike every other class that give a familiar, kineticist have no way to obtain more familiar ability, if it give you a specific familiar from the start, but this would be highly unortodox and would need to be clearly explained).

And finally, the untamed shape need to be updated to automatically include the insect shape form, why do you curse me so to take additional feats to play an insect druid when from level 5 onward it have the exact same power level as animal shape? Why does bugkind must still labor under the yoke of Paizo's oppression when during a whole edition they were called "vermin" and "mindless" and still now they must offer feats to their oppressor to have the right to exist?

If this is about the Mythspeaker module, I think you should probably take it to the mythspeaker portion of the forum, you'd have better chance finding an answer that way, since James Jacob (Paizo's creative director) is far more active in the AP section of the forum than in general discussion.

The rule is I believe, immunity before weakness before resistance.

Meaning you attack for 10, it get increased to 15 because weakness, it get lowered to 5 because resistance.

It's not the most intuitive thing (I would have expected resistance to go before weakness, because resistance feel more "surface" than weakness, and thus that one would need to pierce through it to inflict the weakness), but I think it was done in that order to favor the player, since resistance can be punishing enough to certain type of character as it is. (Players are more unlikely to have weakness/resistance than creatures, and making weakness go before resistance mean that when you deal damage lower than the total resistance but higher than the resistance minus the weakness, some damage go through, while it would deal no damage if the order was reversed)

I think the closer we'll get is the "Ostilli Host" and "Thlipit Contestant" archetype from Howl of the Wild.

The first one is clearly about a symbiotic relationship between a specific ancestry and the Ostilli, and it's noted that this ancestry get access to it even if the archetype is uncommon. It does specify that other ancestry can also bond with the slug (and thus access the archetype), but there is clear theming, and the fact that this is explicitely open to the Sukri but no other ancestry is as close as it get to ancestry specific.

The other is about a martial art of grippli fighting using their prehensile tongue, that was latter adapted by Iruxi using their prehensile tail. Not technically ancestry limited, but you need to have the physical attribute necessary to enter it in the first place (there's also other archetypes for characters with claw or wings).

These are I think a good middle ground between "clearly of a certain culture + relying on certain physical characteristic" without just ensuing a blanket ban on anything "out of the norm". Fleshwarp for example being able to have an appendage that they can use like the grippli use their tongue make sense, but would much probably have been excluded if Thlipit Contestant was ancestry locked, simply because the writters would probably have stopped at the most obvious ancestry instead of noting every edge case. Likewise if you want to consider that the Ostilli can only bond with exosqueletton, I somewhat doubt that insectile sprites, beastkin or even the possible Trox that might one day be released would have been included on the "possible ancestry for this archetype" if it was strictly ancestry locked.

I'd say if you fight random basic goblin tribes at a level where you're able to stack enough instance of damage for this ruling to be problematic, you probably don't need to abuse any loophole to roll them over. This doesn't strikes me as a "low level" kind of issue.

The idea that you could proc that multiple times per attack is going to just melt enemies. We saw that when a poster here ran some Mythic fights to try the system out, someone landed Decree of Execution to give Weakness All 20 to Treerazor, and proceeded to melt him in no time flat.

You get a +3 Holy Thundering Shocking weapon and that's 80 extra damage every hit.

I don't think that kind of outcome is the direction things should be going, especially in more standard play.

It's noteworthy that "decree of divine execution" is an incapacitation and mythic effect that need a critical failure to apply this "weakness all" to any creature above level 18, or for you to spend a mythic point, while treerazer isn't mythic. Not only is mythic in general not exactly "standard play", but it's against a creature that wasn't built to go out against mythic player in the first place, it being outclassed in this scenario is rather normal.

(also I don't think this scenario work in the first place because Treerazer is immune to death effect and the decree have the death trait, but I understand that the point isn't about treerazer in particular)

But truth be told, at that high a level, creatures (especially bosses) have a lot of resistance and immunities, to the point where even if you have as many damage rune as you can on your weapon to maximise "multiple weakness", you very likely end up hitting one or more resistance/immunity with a few of the damaging effect and can't capitalise on them at all as a weakness.

Honestly, appart from it making the math more complicated (which is IMO a really fair point), I feel like most of the criticism levied against this change boil down to white room math that aren't problematic in actual play when happenning to miraculously have a weapon that have all the perfect runes stack on it to proc 3+ weakness at once while avoiding all immunity/resistance is extremely unlikely, but awesome in the rare time it does happen (or require the player to extensively research in advance on the monster it's tracking and prepare specifically for that encounter, which is something that I actively want my players to do as a GM).

The worse it can be abused is through giving foes "weakness to all damage", and I think the only way to do that in the whole game is through 2 archetype specific level 18 feats, that both have limitation and don't remove resistance or immunity. And at that point, I feel like if you're level 18 and your team have invested into "multiple instance of damage" synergy to maximise these things... having a big effect is kinda deserved? Or at least not problematic?

Ritual wise, I feel like the uncommonness don't relate to knowlege of them being limited to some specific part of the world, but rather to it being hard to learn on your own without assistance or patronnage. (not unlike how every focus spell is uncommon for similar reason).

Things like animate object feel like most wizardy organisation know how to do it (there are animated object all around golarion), you just have to pay (or be a part of it) to be teached how to do so yourself. Create undead obviously circulate all around golarion since there are necromancer everywhere, but since it's illegal in most place, it's the type of secret that is transmited in hushed voice, or that an aspiring necromancer need to "dig out" while researching the work of their former peers in order to uncover. Likewise for awaken animal, it feel like the kind of knowledge that any powerfull/ancient enough druidic circle probably know, but they won't teach you unless you prove yourself worthy of knowing it or have a good reason.

For uncommon spells on the other hand...

Scrying (and all the related spells that prevent/foil/detect scrying) feel like it's a "technological bubble" in itself, any area where some proeminent power is able to scry will have all other powers try to acquire the same ability and means to resist/detect it's use. Any arcane spellcaster-heavy place (all the area around new thassilon, the entire area surrounding the eye of dread, Absalom, nex/geb, Natambu, etc) probably have scrying (and anti scrying) as relatively well known and "accounted for" thing that people can do, while I expect places with less active arcane spellcaster to have it be uncommon or unknown.

Likewise for "detonate magic", "dispelling globe" and the like, these spells feel like they would sprout out in a region where magic (and specifically arcane magic) use is especially plentifull and commonplace, while regions that see less spellcasting activity would just rely on "dispel magic" as a "one size fix all" anti-magic spell.

Teleportation effect are more interesting, they were obviously put at uncommon not out of worldbuilding but to prevent them from invalidating some campaign/adventure, but in effect, it does look like these are commonplace in metropolises like Absalom, and far less common in more rural places. Which of course stem from the fact that metropolices have more magic users than rural places, but it does paint an interesting picture, in which every "big city" are "close together", in that it is rather trivial to find a way to teleport from one to another as long as you have enough money/magical ability, while the rural and wild expanses away from these siege of power are more isolated and distant, even if they are geographically closer. As an exemple, I expect that someone at the western extremity of Kortos (the island were Absalom is) would likely take longer and have a harder time in general getting to the eastern extremity of the same island than someone in Absalom trying to get to Quantium (Nex's capital). In a way, it remind me of how Castrovel is depicted, with incredibly vast expanses of wilderness, with large cities spread amongst the surface, connected for the most part by magical portals, the existence of which mean that develloping trade or travel route "on land" is less attractive, which result on the wilderness being left untouched in most region.

There are however two notable exception for these teleportation effect in the player core. The first one is "nature pathway", and the other is "umbral journey", and by extension gate and other mean of plannar travel. These feel like spells that, like rituals, aren't limited to some part of the world, but rather jealously kept secret by some group or individual that would rather not share it. Nature pathway have "druidic secret" written all over it, and the plannar travel ones feel like they are uncommon because some faith or groups with privileged relationship with some other plane would rather keep their privilege for themselves.

And then there's raise dead. It's sorta ubiquitous in the lore, and honestly, it feel like it's uncommon either because "organised religion" have a monopole on the thing and try to keep it to prevent "rogue cleric/oracle/sorcerer" from intruding on their market (which wouldn't really make sense for good nature faith), or.... simply uncommon because it's so costly only rich people can ever afford it, making it uncommon out of class divide.

The presence of "exciting character options" is making me hopefull that we'll see new stuff for bellflower archetype altho i'm not sure how well the network would fit in a "war" adventure path. I hope they are present in some capacity, I love them (they are unironically the most interesting part of cheliax for me) and I'm always up for seeing more of them.

total air walk W, lmao

Wait, doesn’t the battle form only kill your fly spell of the fly spell was before the battle form? Not if cast after? I’m not crazy, that’s definitely a valid interpretation here right?

I do believe this is how it's supposed to work, the transformation "eat" your normal speed, but you can then modify it afterward without issue.

Honestly, I think there's an argument to be made that the fly spell (and the tailwind spell) don't modify your "base stat", but give you a "buff totem" instead, that last for the duration of the spell or until dispelled, and since battle form don't dispell it, it should still give you the buff. And thus that while battle form make you lose "your speeds", since you keept the "buff totem", you keep the speed bonus of tailwind or special speeds you got through other spells.

I mean, the purpose of this sentence is pretty obviously to clarify that no, a human that turn into a shark don't get to still sprint on land, and neither a strix that turn into one can keep it's wings to fly.

I take offence to the giant wasp not being fixed, it's advance manoeuver (fly for 15 feet then strike, or strike then fly for 15 feet for 2 actions) is still strictly worse in every way than just flying and attacking in any order (it have a 40 feet fly speed).

Likewise for the "elemental familiar" kineticist feat, it's wording is still vague and it's unclear wether it give the kineticist a familiar that is an elemental (without the elemental familiar ability), if it give it the elemental ability (and wether it "eat" one of the two familiar ability by doing so or give that ability for free), or if it give the kineticist a "specific elemental familiar" right out of the gate (which would explain why the class don't have access to enhance familiar like any other class with familiars).

Mhhhhhh, I have more than one question so I'll let you chose which one you want to answer amongst those :

- On the "player option" side of things, will it have new stuff for some existing class or archetype, and if yes could you tell us which ones? (I'm thinking mostly new class feats and extension of undead archetype in particular, but things like the new druid orders from wildwood or harrow bloodline from stolen fate were also quite hype).

- If it's (mostly) a megadungeon AP, I'm assuming there's going to be a "base town" in which the PC can recover and regroup and have intrigue with a few of the NPCs, can you give us a preview of it's "vibes"/wether there are some plotline or NPC you are especially proud of? I've ran Rise of the Runelord in 1e and am currently running a "precampaign" for 7 Dooms for Sandpoint, and some NPCs really stuck to my players (namely Podiker, Broder Quink and Hannah), so I'm interested in any "outstanding personality" that might pop up in here.

- You said it was inspired by souls like and universal horror movies (amongst other things), any monster in particular you'd like to show us? Or maybe an haunt or just a general scene/moment that you think will really stick with most group that play the AP?

Isn't Hell's Destiny scheduled to release latter than this AP? That would explain it.

Also, from my understanding, HD is intended to be a possible followup for Hellbreaker, so maybe they're witholding some info that would be "Hellbreaker spoiler" until after Hellbreaker release.

EDIT apparently I was wrong and hell's destiny is indeed intended to release first, so yeah, I assume it's because Hell's Destiny is so tied to Hellbreaker that it doesn't make sense for them to advertise the second one before the release of the first, while Bastion of Blasphemy is it's own separate thing and thus can be hyped separately.

Weren't the "final boss" of the skull&shackles AP chellish corsairs? Honestly, I can see the shakles letting vidrian ships pass for free as long as they pay a tribute (on the spoils of war) on the way back, it's a win-win for them.

However, the fact that pretty much everyone around Cheliax (appart from Nidal) have every reason to help the Andoran side make me think Cheliax will probably have a big ace up their sleeves in that war. Either some magic thingy that can put all of their foes on the backfoot at once (like some hell portal openning way behind the ennemy lines with armies of devils ready to step out of them), or they have a "surprise ally" that's gonna join the war on their side (or at least overtly support them) that people aren't expecting. Given the "world war" thing going on, I expect it to be more the latter.

I feel like out of the country that could reveal themselves as Chelliax ally in this war, those in the golden road are the most likely to be it (mostly because they haven't really been active in PF2 "story" so far, while the Avistani country have had a lot to deal with these past few years). While it's my least favorite pick, I think Rahadoum is probably the country most likely to be "it", simply because it's closest to Cheliax and the whole antireligious angle make them easy to "fit" as ally to the diabolist as well as being a "not that bad Cheliax ally" that could be swayed away from supporting them by the PC by engaging in politicking (while parties like Nidal are jsut straight villains).

Qadira is the other big obvious choice, simply because on the contrary, they are the ones most distant from Cheliax proper, and thus all the horrors of diabolism happen "out of sight" for them, and supporting Cheliax in a bid to weaken andoran and by extension Taldor is sort of an obvious choice. And like Rahadoum, there can easily be a module/adventure in which the PCs have to do some politicking to get them to back off of the alliance without just jumping to "kill them" as the easiest option.

Appart from those two, the other parties I can see working with Cheliax would be Katapesh (because money), and Thuvia (not only because money, but also because Thuvia don't have a central government and is more a loose alliance of city state, and thus there can easily be a situation where some of them are swayed to Cheliax while some are reluctant/unwilling to support them and the thing devolving into a mini civil war in the country).

Then why is the Goddess named progenitor of the goblins and orcs and other monstrous races an objectively evil goddess?

Why, despite them now being playable as PC's, are nearly all sapient undead evil by definition.

Why do these tropes that are born of religious persecution and malignment still part of their narratives?

And yes, Paizo is doing an amazing job working to purge the meta of their world of horrible ideologies. they are putting in work doing it, and I appreciate that. and again, it's why I'm talking about this on a Pathfinder community and not a D&D community. But just because they are doing hard work and making the effort, doesn't mean they've completely fixed everything and there aren't places left to criticize.

Weren't the orcs more about Rovagug than Lamashtu originally? I don't think Lamashtu was ever meant to be their progenitor (and I don't think Rovagug was meant to have been the orc progenitor either, it was more because they had that angry "Hate everything" mentality).

Goblins (and goblinoid in general) on the other hand definitively were hinted pretty strongly as being progeny of Lamashtu with the bargheist hero gods, or at least progeny of those hero gods (which are also evil). And beyond goblins, there are a bunch of other "monstruous" creature whose lore is basically "it is said that the first one were birthed by Lamashtu/Rovagug".

But while I understand the concern, I personally don't mind that some creature, even playable ones, are "canonically" progeny of an evil god. I actually like it, especially if the creatures then are shown to not evil like their progenitor. That an evil godess can give birth to a "neutral" ancestry, who tend toward evil purely due to cultural stuff and not because they are hard coded to to so is pretty interesting, it naturally create stories of these people rising up against not just any random evil god, but their actual creator, it bring nuance to the cult of these deities, it balance nicely with the fact that ancestries created by "good god" aren't necessarily good themselves (evil dwarves exist after all), and finally in reinforce and show the free will and agency of mortals, instead of making it a world were only godly stuff matter and mortal are just pawn that always play a predetermined role given to them by their almighty superior.

As for intelligent undead, I agree with you that I don't like seeing them as "always evil" as demons and the like, since them as tragic figure is very compelling and making it so the turn "switch them to evil" have always been lame to me, but it seems that the lore is heading away from that anyway, with some of them (that aren't ghost, as ghost were always the exception to that "always evil" thing) being shown as neutral fairly recently (and I believe Arazni assencion to the core 20 is also meant to accomodate nonevil undead PC). So I don't really see the point in criticising this further since they quite visibly decided to move in this direction already, the only reason they still seems to be "locked" to always evil is because most pathfinder material date from before that switch.

I want to continue exploring this bias of "Chaos is wrong, Lawful is Right"... because... wow. are people who are "Just following orders" right? even if those horrible orders are lawful?

was Robin Hood, the scarlet Pimpernel, Star Wars Rebels, Br'er Rabbit, etc all inherently wrong for being forces of chaos?

The issue of the whole "law vs chaos" alignment axis is that while pathfinder tried to fully decouple it from the "good vs evil" one, is that for the longest time in DnD, it really was true that chaos was another type of evil, and lawfull another type of good. With some version of it even having a "linear aligment" that goes from "chaotic evil" as the worse evil to "lawfull good" as the best good (and not having "lawfull evil" or "chaotic good" as possibilities), and some version that did feature the full 9 alignment spread, but presenting lawfull good as "the best good" and "lawfull evil" as "the evil you can actually negotiate or ally with when things were dire", while chaotic evil was "kill on sight always" and chaotic good was "ultimately good, but a bit of grey morality (AKA edgy good)".

And while pathfinder tried to get away from that even before removing alignment altogether, and while DnD is also trying to "equilibrate" the evils nowaday, it's still a persistent idea that remain. It goes back to the roots of the hobby where the "always evil" races were almost always tribal "chaotic" society, while the "good ones" were closer to western civilisation (and presented as more lawfull and "enlightenned").

Also I believe that Elric of Melniboné (which is the first bit of fantasy I'm aware that did the "chaos vs order" as cosmological powers and much probably influenced it's appearance in DnD), had chaos being antagonistic most of the time. Even if the books described "order" as no less monstruous (and Elric was meant to serve balance between both), Chaos was specifically the one on the offensive during the story and is the antagonistic force for most of it, so it's natural that people taking inspiration from it without thinking too much about it would make the chaos side "evil" and the order one "good".

But yeah, I agree that decoupling chaos/order from morality argument is much more interesting, and that it was tied to it mostly because old edition of DnD followed a vision of morality in which western civilisation and status quo = good while nonwestern culture and upsetting the status quo = bad.

As the other say, it's not really supported, and I believe it's because implement are partially balanced by the fact that you can only wield 2 of them at any given moment, but you could hold all 3 at once if your weapon implement don't use your hands (or two implement and another held item). Appart from that specific case, I don't think having a natural weapon as a weapon implement increase the thaumaturge power at all, it make it so it's a weapon implement that can't be disarmed, but the fact that it can't be disarmed is already "baked in" the natural weapon power budget itself I believe.

So honestly, I'd allow it if the natural weapon is literally your hand and doesn't "count" as a weapon implement if you're holding something with it (basically making it so you effectively "swap" your weapon implement with whatever you're holding in that hand), if your character have only one arm (making it so it can have two implement as other thaumaturge with the natural one playing the role of the weapon implement), or if you rule that your character is a bit clumsy and can't use it's natural weapon as implement if they are also holding two different object (that they can't wield alongside implements) in their hands.

Or if I'm in a group that don't care that much about balance. It's a power increase for sure, but it's not that dramatic.

The few thing we know about Aroden is that he was a wizard, and that he was from ancient Azlant. So in my view of things, I decided to tie his death to the dissapearance of Lissala, AKA the thassilonian (and originally Azlant) godess of rune and magic, that we know is still alive, but who have dissapeared and nobody know where she is or what she is doing, even her own servant and herald know.

Basically the idea is that as the date of his "glorious return" to golarion was approaching, Aroden decided to add even more flair to the event by also bringing back the godess as an ally/lieutenant of his (since we all know he loved to have women serving as his right hand), and went looking for her, but didn't succeed and died instead. Specifically, in his search for her, he found a divine equivalent to the good old "symbol of death" and just dropped dead then and there.

The reason is multiple, I like the idea that his undoing was purely his own ego (he didn't need to go looking for her, his return was already written in stone), because "ancient golarion" is full of reference to the older DnD edition (the runelords obviously working with 2e wizard rule, the green faith being 2e druid...) and Aroden dying because of the stupid unfair trap you can't predict or resist to and just have to sorta know it's there that was frequent in old DnD is funny, and because I find Lissala's whole deal more interesting than Aroden so I don't mind subbordonning his mystery as a smaller part of hers.

Also, because I have idea for a megadungeon campaign with Lissala having locked herself at the center of it, and having "absolute" runes that have irresistible effect and act more like puzzle than normal hazard is pretty central to this idea. And having literally Aroden corpse being what foreshadow/warn the party about the rune/symbol of death would be pretty neat.

To my knowledge, the giant wasp animal companion still hasn't been fixed. It's advanced manoeuver take two action to either fly 15 feet then strike, or strike then fly 15 feet, which is strictly worse than just using it's base fly speed (40 feet) and a strike in any order.

It's a bit annoying since unlike a bunch other small mistake there's no clear indication of what the upside is supposed to be here, is it supposed to take just one action, and it's action compression that give the wasp a diminished "stride" for free? Is it supposed be a movement that don't trigger reaction, giving the wasp a 15 feet "step" that fly? The name of the maneover is "darting strike", is it supposed to let you strike at any point of your movement, letting the wasp close the gap, strike then retreat?

Other than that, something that stumped my player and I recently is the kineticist familiar feat, it's unclear wether it give the kineticist a familiar with the "elemental" familiar ability and one that you can choose, with the "elemental" familiar ability for free and 2 you can choose as usual, or if it give you one of the specific elemental familiar present in the book (which would explain why unlike any other class with familiars, there isn't any "improved familiar" line for the kineticist). We settled on the second option for now, but some clarification would be welcome.

Ever since I've read the impossible land book, the idea of an adventure with the party being the crew of a flying ship really grew on me. Seeing this exact setup being the framing device of the Howl of the Wild book only reinforced this interest.

It's such a simple but so evocative premice, I'd love to see an AP with this setup. I guess that it would force the adventure to either happen mostly in the air, which might get stale (and very deadly), or for the ship to regularly "touch land", but I do think there is a way to make it work, and if it does, it could be one of the most unique and beloved AP.

If the leshy iconic "issue" (not really an issue, but let's pretend it's one) drag until pathfinder 3, Lini better start feeling nervous. Druid is *the* perfect fit for a leshy class, given that leshies were first created to be druid variant on the "craft construct", and then a druid specific familiar. And also, the whole plant/nature thing.

Anyway, off the top of my head, the class that don't exist yet that would most fit a leshy iconic would be a spontaneous primal spellcasting class (something which I'm still surprised animist didn't end up being), a primal bounded spellcasting class (which could be "shifter-lite"), an actual shifter class, or.... to completely sidestep the (admitedly very important to leshy) nature element and instead lean in the "discovery and curiosity" aspect of things and become an item based class, like an alchemist but for all other item instead of specifically alchemy and consumables. Altho I'm not too sure such class in the works, given that alchemist is already a bit controversial.

Was just thinking about this, and an AP where the PCs are theives / pirates and the books are built around heists, abductions, banditry, shakedowns, etc.

Maybe just a level 1-10 AP as they rise in the criminal underworld of some major city.

Being "locked" into being bandits is a hard sell for an AP, since evil scenario aren't that popular, however one way to do it while accomodating the groups that don't want to be evil would be a sort of treasure hunt. Where the PC learn of the existence/location of something very valuable, and retrieving the shinies is the main motivation of the adventure (which could mean that the adventure is a heist if it's in a urban setting, or an expedition for a wilder one). Where the "villain" of the AP is either whatever is keeping the treasure, or another rival group that set up to do the exact same thing as the party (or both).

This kind of setup accomodate a group of greedy pirate or bandit PC, while not completely closing the door on good characters that might want to use the money for something more noble than simply to get richer.

I think serpent skull tried to do this, but the 6 module format forced the story to become bigger than that by the end, while also having the issue of early mwangi... not being the best, and the classic issue of mismatched expectation with the player guide not advertising the fact that the core of the adventure was going to be a treasure hunt all that well.

But I'd accept it gratefully if no PC ever gets into a fight with Sorshen, or if there's never an attempt to conquer Varisia by what's left of Zutha.

Speaking of Zutha, what happenned to him? From what I heard, one third of his soul cage grimoire got destroyed in return of the runelords, and this somehow destroyed his soul, but what of the two other third, were they also destroyed? From my understanding his grimoire worked like the book of the damned, with a "it pop back into existence if you don't destroy all three parts in quick succession" clause, was it not the case?

Just like the swords of sins (or other intelligent items) that possessed their weilders, I like the idea of the evil grimoire that slowly turn it's user into Zutha, that's a pretty unique way for a lich to come back to (un)life and it's very evocative.

This looks odds to me? Either I'm missing something about that monster or there is some kind of mistake in it's description.

This lame take is certainly in line with this forum. They didn't "make the game easier", they removed unintended interactions between flavour and rules. Worshippers of Urgathoa weren't supposed to be unable to play Blood Lords because it primarily features undead opponents. Worshippers of Pharasma are supposed to be able to play in most Adventure Paths, which tend to involve looting at least one tomb.

Agree with you on Urgathoa, Desna and Nethys, but Pharasma does feel a bit weird, because while the tomb looting was rare enought to not come up too much (but enough to make the anathema an interesting conundrum), the new formulation feel like it refer to any looting of dead body... which include any opponent you just killed. And as we all know, looting your opponent is basically the fundation upon which the whole pathfinder economy is build, so preventing the pharasmin believer to loot at all is rough. The formulation also make it weird, as I don't really see how someone can loot the dead in "good" or "bad" faith. They can do so for good reason or because of greed, but "in bad faith" imply that they lie about their true intention.

As if you could rob any tomb or corpse just to sell it latter as long as you're open that you're a tomb robber, but that if you pretend to be a tomb robber, but are instead someone tring to get these item back to their original owner, then you suddenly violate the anathema because you were acting in bad faith.

I'd just say to express in the Playtest Survey what you're like to see in the complete class.

I don't really get what is your point here, aren't these forum made specifically for people to tell what they think about the iteration of the class that's being playtested?

Sure, interaction with already released element of the game need less playtesting, but it still need some of it if they want to use these elements in uncommon ways. And these forum are made for us to talk about how we feel about the current iteration of the class, so i'm reporting (and I'm not the only one), that from my perspective, the necromancer don't interact enough with necromancy in general, instead focussing solely on it's own special feature. So I'm expressing that I would like more feature, no matter the form they take, that allow for this class to make better use of the already released necromancy option.

A better version of the shambling horror focus spell would fix a lot of those feel problems. A focus spell that's basically summon undead except it has to target a corpse. Unlikely, even if they lowered the level of the summon to not be top tier spell, it would then fall right into the useless bin for a lot of players.

Honestly, given how "not meta" summon spells are (for good reason), I feel like having a feat that turn them into focus spell (and thus allow you to cast them at max heigtenning without having to lose your other top level slot) would be far from broken.

Druids already have a subclass that take two spells (pest and animal form), smash them together and turn them into a focus spell (with even added upside), with the possibility of adding even more spell to the pile and adding even more upside to them through other feats, so turning normal spells into focus spell isn't broken by itself, it depend on the specific spell. And summon spells have enough restriction I feel to make them fine as focus.

Do note that I say that in the necromancer thread, but I'm not talking solely for them. Summoners, sloth wizard, and druid all deserve a way to get such upside I think, even if it cost them a couple of feats to get to it. Because right now, summon really doesn't feel worth using.

I think Ragathiel "swapping" is now more unlikely than ever. Even if Ragathiel as "good" was kinda debatable, he was a bit too extreme and I can see how it felt weird for one like him to be considered "cosmically good", he absolutely picked a side in the war between holy and unholy, and it sure wasn't the unholy side. I feel like Ragathiel is an incarnation of the "angel going overboard in their crusade to smite all evil" trope, and that despite the edge and possible moral dubiousnes of such character, they can't not be holy.

it's one of the case where I feel like calling these side "holy and unholy" instead of good and evil actually enrich the world, because it allow for less than ideal divinity or character to be holy as long as they stand against the "unholy" side, and for unholy divinity or character to still show some amount of virtue or moral backbone, as long as they stand against the "holy" side. While before, having a "good" god that was morally not that great felt like a complete oxymoron.

But you can just take reanimator or undead master and add those options in? What benefits is gained by printing them again outside of vibes?

To make the class more connected to the rest of the system instead of being an odd duck that doesn't interact with anything other than it's own special rules?

Beside, "vibe" is a quality in itself. A class that all about summoning, controlling and exploiting undeath but doesn't actually interact with any undeath option outside it's own chasis feel fake. It's as if the "undead" theme was just a paintjob and could be swapped with literally anything else without changing the class at all. Giving them features (be they feats or class ability) that actually interact with the rest of the game undead option ground the class theme much more.

Look at the druid for exemple, the primal spells and their focus spells give them a "nature" feel, sure, but it doesn't stop here. They have feats that allow them to talk to any animals or plant, not just their special companion or the one they summons. That allow them to ignore any strong wind, or to swim in any body of water, to ignore any plant based difficult terrain, etc etc. Their "one with nature" feel don't just stop at their own ability, it's connected to the rest of the game system. Likewise for alchemist, what they do is directly connected to the alchemical item anyone can get, it's not limited to special decoction only them can brew.

Beside, it's not as if these change need to be a big power jump. Between affecting the class special ability that they always have access to, or some more niche thing that they must specifically "buy into", like undead summons or an undead companion, the latter will always be more conditional and require more investment to work, so it balance itself out. But even just having the class synergize, even a tiny bit, to these option would go a long way to make the fantasy more "real", and feel less isolated and disconnected from the actual world.

EDIT : On reread, I feel like you have misread me, I'm not advocating for adding undead companion feat tree to the necromancer here (I think it would be nice, but it's not necessarily needed, as long as there are available enought archetype). What I'm saying is that the necromancer feats and feature need to account for undead companion or summon instead of just being only about thralls, thralls, thralls. A lot of these feature could easily be written as "target thrall or undead minion you control" instead of just thrall, and it would make the class feel more flavorfull, more connected to the rest of the system, for a very low power boost (as setting up before using the incredibly easy to create thrall is inherently easier than undead summons or undead companion). Likewise, it could easily have a handfull of feats that doesn't interact with thralls but with other undead themed part of the game (like a feat giving them better access to the summon undead spell, or to the harm spell), like the summoner feats that interact with summons spell instead of their eidolons.

Nice to see this!

However, I have to point out that the advanced maneuver of the giant wasp animal companion from Howl of the Wild is still broken, in that it offer no benefit over simply using one action to fly then one action to attack (or the reverse).

For those unaware, the Giant wasp have a fly speed of 40 feet, and it's advanced manoeuver take two action to either fly for 15 feet then strike, or strike then fly for 15 feet. It doesn't have any other effect, and doesn't offer any action compression or any kind of upside over simply flying then striking in any order, in fact, it's strictly worse since the fly speed in this action is less than half of the wasp base fly speed.

I'm pointing this one out specifically because unlike a lot of obvious mistake, this one is actually a bit difficult to homebrew, as it doesn't gives off a clear idea of what the manoeuver was supposed to be. Maybe it was supposed to take one action to do this, and thus be simple action compression, or it was supposed to be a "skirmish" ability that allow the wasp to strike at any point during it's movement (and thus allow them to do a "get close, strike, get away" in only two action, even if the move speed was reduced). Or it could even be supposed to be a movement that doesn't trigger reaction. But as it stand, it's difficult to make a call, as it's difficult to decide which one is the intended ability.

A public "future errata" page,

A monthly dev roundup Q&A (delayed and curated community Q & dev A reverses the prior incentive for toxic alarmism; incendiary comments don't get picked, while insightful ones do),
etc,
all can systematically reduce the toxicity.

While I do agree that Paizo could be a bit clearer on "what problem they are aware of and looking forward to fix, and what they don't consider a problem", I do have to point out that a "rule pending for future errata" list could be far more noxious than the current level of toxicity if handled incorrectly.

Publishing such list would create very clear expectation, and if they struggle to find a satisfying "fix" for one of these issue, or worse, change their mind about a certain issue and decide that they actually don't want to errata it anymore, it can very quickly be seen as "betrayal" for the fans that expect these rules to be errata'd in the very next rollout when they see that they aren't (or worse, when they see that the rule is taken away from the "to be fixed" list). Furthermore, all contentious rules that does not appear in such list could then grow even more toxicity, as the part of the community that consider this a problem and want this rule changed would now feel vindicated, as Paizo would be openly disregarding their concerns by ommiting it from "the list".

These two issues also create a big problem, as Paizo would only want to post the rules they are 100% certain they will errata shortly in such list to avoid the first issue, but doing so will amplify the second one as most of the rules people are unsatisfied with fatally won't show up there.

So not only doing this would require a lot more work from Paizo, it's could also be a double edged sword, so I understand that they are wary about how to approach this. Personally, I think it could be nice if they introduced a short "errata preview" telling us of the biggest things they are 100% working on and are certain will be part of the next errata wave, so that we know what to expect, but it would be far from a magic "fix toxicity" button, and they need to clearly set expectation with it.

Injection weapons for Alchemists definitely sound cool! I'm still trying to perfect my paintball potions in a slingshot idea, and injection weapons sound like a fun departure for more chaotic alignments, due to feelings around needles.

Speaking of slingshot, I can't believe we don't have any feat or ability yet that allow the player to use alchemical bombs as sling amunition (even if all it does is letting you use the sling weapon range increment and/or potency rune for the bomb). Not only is it an obvious combo, it would help carve a niche for the slings weapons, which is a bit lacking for the moment.

Other than that, I agree with botbrain here, it's nice to see these feat offering a broader range of weapon to access, I hope it's a sign that weapon proficiency get a bit easier to get by as non-human moving forward. I understand why advanced weapon had to cost at least a feat for non-fighter, free access to them is one of the core fighter feature after all, but it always felt bad that you had to play a human if you wanted true access to 99% of them, because the ancestry specific feats were extremely specific and only the human feat "unconventional weapon" actually allowed normal scalling for basically any weapon you wanted. I always felt like either the ancestry feat had to be expanded to englobe whole weapon subtypes to actually measure up to that versatility, or that the "weapon proficiency" general feat should have allowed you normal scalling for the weapon you chose, not that "trained from 1-10, expert for 11-20".

I mean, the Summoner doesn't really incentivize the class to summon anything either but that's what we got.

The summoner do get a few feats that incentive using summon spells, which is more than I can presentely say for the necromancer and undead options as of now.

But also, I think you're right, it's true that the summoner don't actually insentivise summon that much. But I'm of the opinion that this is somewhat of a flavor fail, and that if summoner is to be remastered, it should be touched up a little to make it better at summonning (well, I'm of the opinion that summons spells in general should be modified a bit to not hog the top level slot and jump in utility so much depending on your level, but I think that battle is lost).

So I'd like if the necromancer class was a bit more in tune with necromancy, instead of being solely focussed on it's special mechanic to the exclusion of everything else. Most of the chassis and power can come from thralls, no problem with that, but it shouldn't be so entirely closed to every other form of necromancy.

Now that I think about it some more, I think the main issue the devs are warry for with moving the thralls is less about "in combat" balance, and more about exploration. If the necromancer can freely create thralls, and then freely move them, a necromancer could have a pair of "always summoned" thrall that move with the group, the necromancer would have to stop to ressumon them every minute, and to slow down to take time to command it's thralls, but it would be "technically possible". So even if in combat, the action of moving your already summoned thrall wouldn't be that broken, it could be if it allow you to always start all of your battle with a pair of presummoned thrall.

So while I still think that some normal way to move the thralls are needed, I get now why they are warry. They would probably have to make that way really innefficient action wise, or include some other trick in order to make sure that people don't try to "game" the system by having thralls always summoned in exploration.

Personally, I think one of the issue with the flavor of this class is that despite being a "necromancer", it actually doesn't interact with necromantic option beyond those that are specific to the class. All the feats only ever interact with the thralls, and never with things like summoned undead minion, undead companion or familiar. Necromancer, as it stand, don't have any more mechanical insentive to use the "summon undead" spell than a bard, which is a bit of a flavor miss for me.

The isolation of the class mean that it could be reflavored in anything, an oozemancer, a totem-mancer, a floating-magical-star-mancer, and the mechanic could stay the exact same while reflavoring only the "visual" of it and it would still make sense. Making the class less isolated, by making it interact with the other, non necromancer specific, undead options would go a long way to strenghten the theme.

It could be as easy as changing a few of the feats and cantrip to say "selected thrall or undead minion you control" instead of just "selected thrall". It wouldn't work for all feats or focus spells, but it would for a good amount of them, like Reach of the Dead, Necrotic Bomb, or even the Consume Thrall class ability.

That gives a fair amount of additional mechanical power is the problem. Suddenly one character has 5+ mobile units that can flank and you can choose which one attacks.

I believe that's why they simply didn't give them this option.

I mean, the necromancer already have a single action "create a body and make it attack" right from level 1, which is better than making one already created body move and then attack, because it leave you with one more body at the end of this action (and it isn't restricted by possible terrain effect). The necromancer already have a number of unit that can flank and attack, and the possibility of moving one of these unit from one point to another is inherently less powerfull than the innate ability to simply endlessly create more of them exactly where you want them to appear.

The only real upside for moving thralls would be to reach beyond that 30 feet range, and that can easily be tuned by making the necromancer control range dependant. Of course, they would need to limit the number of thrall you can move at once, since moving all your thralls in a single action would be far too powerfull, but I do think this is an action that wouldn't add much power to the necromancer but make them feel much more flavorfull.

Personally, I think a cantrip like:

1 action
Up to 2 thrall you control within 20 feet of you can move up to 15 feet each. Then, one of the thrall you moved can make an attack for the same DC and damage as create thrall, this strike use and count toward your mutiple attack penalty. You can move up to 3 thralls if you have expert necromancy, to 4 if you have master, or to 5 if you have legendary.

would be worth testing, as I don't think that it would increase the power of the necromancer much, but make the thralls feels much more like actual summoned creates, and not just "totems". it would be a rather cheap way to "fix" the perceived flavor issue of the class.

I feel like most of the issue people have with the flavor of the class could be easily fixed without either completely overhauling the thrall mechanic or buffing it's power too much. Something as easy as giving an aditional action that allow the necromancer to move it's thrall would go a long way making them feel like more than just "totems". Altho to make this action worth using at all, there would need to be some manner of upside over just creating more thrall where you want to send them, but it could be as simple as allowing you move "x+1" thrall, where "x" is the number of thrall you can raise in a single action.

As for the actual subject of this thread, I do think an easy way to get an undead companion is kinda needed for the flavor of the class. If the undead companion isn't already "baked in" the class as it is for the druid, then they need to reprint and update the undead master archetype, and to probably remove the "only evil/unholy" restriction. Having a main monster following you is just too big of a necromancer fantasy to completely ignore I feel like.

Also, I think the idea The Ronyon gave, about allowing the necromancer to count any undead minion as thrall is really worth exploring, and it would go a long way to make the necromancer feel like an actual necromancer. If only their own special class ressource count as "undead under their control" for all of their abilties, it create a rupture in the way the world work. In world, thralls raised in a hurry, the special zombie the necromancer have been tinkering, and those creature they summoned through summon undead are all undead under the necromancer power, so they all should be possible recipient of that power. Even if gameplay-wise it's an edge case as it's far more efficient to use up the thrall that cost no ressource instead of your costly summons or unique undead companion, simply openning up this possibility can do a lot for the versimilitude of the game and the fantasy of the class.

The way I like to draw them, If you didnt have reference objects in the art you wouldnt be able to tell they were 3 feet tall.

Same actually, I like to envision gnome with the more cartoonish feature, like the bigger head and eyes, but halfling as basically "half as tall human". But I understand why this version of them makes it very difficult for them to actually differentiate halfling and human when on a neutral background, so at least some level of dismorphism is to be expected. But some of it goes a bit too far for my taste, like the halfling priestess portrait in the owlcat games.

Speaking of the lost Omen world guide, the character at page 130 really show the issue quite clearly. I assume it's a gnome since she have a very big head and wear shoes, but it could very well be a halfling since some of them are shown to have just as large a head, and clothes (or the lack of them) shouldn't be the sole "tell" of an ancestry. In the grand scheme of things it's a rather small issue, but I'd like if it was made a bit clearer.

Altho to be perfectly honest, my "fix" of simply making sure that halfling heads are kept smaller than the gnome's isn't solely about this. It's also because while I think that the big head "fit" the gnome, with their more cartoonish feature (bigger eye, the color and flow of their hair and eyebrows...), I find that it often just look weird on the halflings. It's not always the case, but often enough that I think their head should be a bit smaller as a baseline. I get that the big head is an easy way of indicating that "this is a small character" when they are just alone on the page and without any point of comparison, but I can't help but think that there must be a more elegant way to do it.

Back on the actual subject of this thread, I think the issue with physically differentiating gnomes and halfling better might be solved not by changing the gnomes, but the halfling instead.

Right now, from what I can see by scouring every pathfinder halfling picture I can get my hand on, they are represented sometime with adult human proportion but smaller, and sometime with a disproportionally large head compared to their body (like, a head almost as large as their entire body). Gnomes meanwhile, always have a that big head, and the picture of characters that seems ambiguous on wether they are halfling or gnome all have that big head. So to me, the simplest "fix" for that issue would be to decide that "small head halfling" is the canonical way they look in golarion.

Now, while I say "simplest", I do get that each artist have their own vision of what each ancestry looks like, which is probably what created this "small head vs big head halfling" discrepancy in the first place. So even if it's the simplest choice on paper, it might not be the easiest to implement (as shown by the fact that even today, elves with "human" eyes show up in pathfinder books every now and again, despite the monocolor eye being their canon look since the launch of pathfinder).

The coke vs pepsi comparison quite aptly describe how I felt about the gnome/halfling, because to me they seemed so close in flavor that if you like one over the other, you have basically no reason to ever try the other. I didn't have such issue with the dwarves or elves for exemple, despite prefering halfling over them, there were still elves/dwarves character concept that I though about that didn't really fited halfling.

One errata I think is as "objectively" needed as it can be is for the Giant Wasp animal companion. It's advanced manoeuver take two action to either fly for half of it's speed, then strike, or strike, then fly for half of it's speed, with no added benefit what so ever. Meaning that it's actually strictly worse than simply using two separate action to fly and strike in any order without using that maneuver. There are probably other small issues like that that are quite obviously oversight that need errata, but it's the only one I can think of.

Another issue that is much more subjective but I think need an errata is untamed form, and the feat "insect shape". Given that like animal form, it heighten up to the 5th level, have the exact same powercurve, and doesn't give any additional utility (no new move speed that animal form can't get, no new senses that animal form can't get), I don't understand why it need a whole new feat to be added into untamed form. It strikes me as a simple "flavor tax", taking one more feat for the druid that want to be specifically insect themed, for no actual power increase. So I think the feat should be retired, and that untamed form should have a third level heigtenning that add the forms listed in insect form in it's list.

Yeah, I think the "hook" was the issue for me at least. I know that some peoples liked gnomes and played them in dnd, but I had trouble getting what the gnome "hook" was supposed to be appart from "slightly more whimsical halfling". Pathfinder tying them more to the feys, and giving them a very different lifecycle and outlook on life when compared to the other core ancestry meanwhile really made them standout on their own, and made me consider actually playing one instead of defaulting to halfling for all my smallfolk needs.

Now that I'm actually taking time to think about them, I guess that "gnome are whimsical while halfling are more grounded" have always been how they've been defined (or at least, in the editions I touched), but I still think that the dnd version lacked something to trully set them appart.

Yeah, I never really understood why in DnD gnome were a "core race" like the human, elves, dwarves and halfling. They seemed to only exist to be "halfling, but magical", as if since halfling were stereotyped into being only rogues and bards, they had to have this other small race that made good wizard, druid and cleric. But making your halfling a full magic user was still perfectly viable, just a bit subpar compared to races with int or wis bonus, so I didn't get why the gnome had to be here.

Pathfinder really gave them an identity that make them feel like an actually worthwhile addition to the lineup, and not like just an overgrown halfling subtype.

EDIT : I just posted this so I feel a bit silly to immediately edit it, but now that I though about it some more, the original inclusion of the gnome in the "core" lineup in dnd probably had something to do with the race/class limitation of the second edition. I remember that only very few classes were open to halfling in the OG baldur gates, so I guess that in that system "halfling but open to magical class" really was something necessary. And if that's the case, I guess that the edition just grandfathered gnome in the core lineup even if they didn't really had a strong reason to exist once that limtation was removed.

On the other side of things, all the new Tian Xia content has this year has been *stellar*. The Tian Xia World Guide is one of the best RPG books I've read in years.

Yup, the only "flaw" of the Tian Xia books is that they aren't even longer. It's good to see that the region books are still so good.

From an "in world" perspective, either side actually winning would make the victorious country a threat to their other neighbors.

Would it? Beyond their rivalry, neither country seems expansionist in the least, they both seems quite content in their position. I would expect that if one side "won" and absorbed the other, they would then spend decades if not century "integrating" it into their territory to secure an absolute victory with no possibility of rebellion, but that they would afterward remain mostly isolationist, trading with the rest of the world but not bothering trying to invade or conquer them.

After all, the reason of the conflict don't seems to be a power or land grab, but a mere ego war. They both could invade much "easier" neighbor to deal with if they actually wanted to expand, instead of focussing on the one neighboring country with a mastery of magic that rival theirs.

Yeah with Golarion humanocentrism, I expected it, which is why it didn't surprise me, but it still disapointed me a bit. I guess it was innevitable, and out all all the stories we might have gotten, I really like this one.

It does seems to create a bit of inconsistency in the relationship between Norgorber and Thamir, because they seemed to actually respect each other here, with Thamir being his tutor and helping him quite a lot and Norgorber causing his ascension... but then the recent divine mystery book state that Norgorber "view Thamir with disdain", and paint a very different relationship. I guess the apparent dislike could be a front because "god of secrets" and all that, but I don't really see what either of them stand to gain by doing that.

(One could even read into that the fact that as god of humanity, Aroden setting this up could even have weighed the odds of fate toward human ascensions via the starstone, but that's an apocryphal side effect and not the initial design intent.)

This is going to sound like a joke but I'm absolutely serious, but I fully expect that everything in the starstone cathedral to be solely human scaled (and more precisely, scaled for a human as tall as Aroden). I expect every single stair, door, furniture to be build for the exact same height, and that all the possible night impossible challenges countained within were crafted with the assumption that a human-sized being would be taking them (and thus that some may be far easier or even more difficult for those that doesn't actually fit these criteria).

While just outright setting the stone to refuse non-human seems out of character for Aroden, crafting a "fair" challenge that's actually only account for humans seems completely in character for him.

I was under the impression that all that's alive in the pathfinder universe have soul, even if animal/plants/nonsapient life have "smaller" ones. So daemons are indeed fundamentally opposed to all life, not just sentient one.

But also, even if I agree that druids are indeed akin to "nature's cleric", I don't think "nature" in pathfinder is as personified as gods are. It's not a single entity that take snap decision to cut off your power because "you sided with it's ennemies", like Pharasma could do if you sided with daemons. I think that for druids to lose their power, they don't just need to "take side" with something that's opposed to nature, they need to take action that oppose nature directly, they need to sever themselves their link to the natural world.

So I think that in a relatively small time frame (like for a single campaign that doesn't last long "in world"), a character could both have druidic and apocalypse rider powers at once. I 100% agree that at term, such power would corrupt the druid enought that their link to the natural world will be severed and they will lose their druidic power (such corruption could be represented first in game by them starting to lose the ability to understand windsong, as their link with the natural world grow more tenuous), but I don't think it would be an instant "become an Apocalypse Rider -> lose your druid license" deal like trip is saying.

I do have to point out that "para-" titles are apparently non-hereditary, meaning that your outcast can't come from a noble line of para-something.

However, a character that is the child of some Count or something, that was disowned for some reason but then given the title of "Paracount" by the Thrune could create some juicy family dynamics. It could also be a way for the Thrune to publicaly insult a familly while remaining perfectly cordial, by visibly getting involved in their private business to reward their black sheep.

That's a completely nonsensical complaint. 12 lvl doesn't hit like that because of equipment. Yes, equipment helps. But they actually hit like that because they are 12th level. If levels are real for PCs and give them so much power, complaining that same levels give comparable power to NPCs makes no sense. It makes PCs and NPCs closer, not more different.

Do note that I precised "a fully geared up level 12 PC", not just "a level 12 PC". Anyone playing this game understand very quickly the importance of runes in the math, especially damage wise, so when a humanoid NPC quite visibly hit with an attack power equivalent to a greater striking rune (something PC immediately experience when they get hit), but end up carrying entirely mundane equipment, it does indeed "break the illusion".

Also I didn't think that out of my whole comment that specific portion would be the one people take issue with, given that in this very thread devs already chimmed in on this topic to state that they indeed try to give NPC gears that make sense with their stats (which is why this specific issue was mostly one for early 2e AP, and not so much for the more recent ones). I specifically used that exemple because it was one that was baked up by dev comment in this very thread.

I feel like, from a worldbuilding perspective, either side actually winning in a geb vs nex war would end up making golarion "worse" because the existence of the two country feels more interesting than either of the two winning over the other (or crumbling onto itself).

However, what could be interesting would be if they "traded blow" and managed to gain a foothold on each others land before reaching a new truce or other wise freezing the war for X or Y reason. Something like the fleshforge city falling under gebbite leadership, and the northern citadel city of Geb bieng seized by nexian forces both open up some very interesting possibilities.

Which is why I think that "two AP, one for each side" would work great for a conflict like that. Each can take place in a different region and end up with the party securing a massive victory for their side... which is balanced by the other AP securing a massive victory in another region for the opposite side. And having each of the country now own an "enclave" in the other territory, separated from their main land by the mana waste, which they struggle to control (and exploit) can make for great future stories.