Click on that link.Where did you find it? I mean, yeah, the link goes to the player guide, but I would also be interested to know where I was supposed to find it if someone hadn't thrown it here. Because I can't find a link to the guide on the hellbreaker store page like I can for the rest of the AP.
Untamed form is one of my small pet peeve with the game, with the way it's a focus spell that need feat investment to remain relevant through the levels. I really feel like insect form and dinosaur form should have been included in the base spell the way animal form was, insect shape is a sidegrade that don't give new impactfull feature, and dinosaur shape is basically "animal form but bigger and for a higher level range", the former feel like a flavor tax, and the second a straight feat tax. Things like soaring shape, elemental shape, plant shape, those I get, they do give you really impactfull option like the ability to fly or deal/resist elemental damage, but having to pick up new feat just for the ability to remain usefull just feel bad. It's somewhat emblematic of my main issue with the druid (or probably with spellcasters in general), that a lot of their feat feel like a tax you need to take instead of cool new stuff as they should. Some feature feel like they should be part of the class/subclass and not be locked behind a feat, like monstruosity form, and some feel like they should be available at an earlier level, like the ability to switch between form without having to go through the "normal" shape (which I am convinced isn't locked to a level 20 feat because of balance consideration, but because the designers just though "what is the coolest feature we can give to cap off wildshape?" and slapped it onto the capstone feat, hereby locking it away for 95% of the level range just to make the capstone feel a bit more special).
Ohhh, the monster is interesting, it really open up some fun uses, especially with the burrow speed that allow it to potentially escape once a party member is infected, which then create some very interesting roleplaying opportunity, as well as providing some obvious goals to the party that should keep them engaged. especially with the obvious infection the player are aware, but with them being unaware of the evolution if the creature don't want them to be, that's a neat idea. For the aasimar feat though, I have to ask, was it intentional to make it so the "beast of nirvana" don't immediately gain a level 1 beastkin feat like the dragon gain a level 1 dragonkin one? I feel like the access to the change shape alone isn't quite worth the tradeoff there, but I'm not sure.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I won't argue and say that strict simulationist design is better than what we have in PF2, but there is a certain elegance that arise when the rules flawlessly mesh into the world, especially in immersive tabletop game such as this one, and that PF2 strict adherence to "balance before all" do often lack this element, making it more difficult to get immersed into it's world. And whenever a NPC visibly demonstrate that they work on different "physics" than the PC, it further harm this immersion. To me, a game like this one should ideally find a good balance that allow for the gameplay to be easy to grasp and run smoothly while still showing a world that feel "real" and alive beyond what the player experience. Despite it's failing, and despite the fact that player and NPC ar build on entirely different rules, PF2 mostly manage to protect that "realness" by having the the NPC act in gameplay in ways that feel consistent with the players own possible action, but because they are built on different rule, it's all an illusionist act that must be performed carefully. If it's not, you have things like human soldier NPC that hit like a fully geared up level 12 PC but carry entirely mundane equipment. Personally, I think that PF2 fail often enought to maintain the act that I can't consider it "strictly better" than the first edition (which is why I play both). Ease of building and more balanced combat is nice, but the world feel more vivid to me when I'm playing with 1e rules. Altho maybe GMing 2e will make me change my mind, I've run (almost) an entire 1e AP as GM but still only ever played 2e as a player.
Yeah, I like his personal story very much, but I'm disapointed that he's yet another human. I'm not a fan of the "4 halfling" thing because I find it more interesting to have a singular being with four drastically different identity, but him being a single halfling with a somewhat similar backstory would have elevated him a lot. There's something of an issue with core ancestry representation. Humans (now) got all the core ascended (as well as lots of non core deity, the single most important dead god of the setting, etc etc), elves got 2 core gods (calistra and urgathoa) as well as a whole pantheon, dwarves got a single core god and a whole pantheon behind, halfling god two non core demideity that are very much presented as sidekick to other "greater" gods (Chaldira and Cayden, Thamir and Norgorber). Only gnome got it worse with only a noncore demideity, but the fey theme mean that all of the Eldest fit them as well. Even the newer core inclusion (orcs, goblins and leshy) all come with their own pantheon. In the end complaining about it serve no purpose because what's done is done and I'm absolutely certain that Paizo won't be changing that bit of lore, but it's still a massive missed opportunity in my eyes.
Ignoring the meme, I'm actually a bit sad that Norgorber wasn't a halfling (one, not four in a trenchcoat). Having all the ascended core gods be humans is a bit boring, and having his secrecy stem from a kind of inferiority complex (or be a calculatted play stemming from the fact that halfling gods wouldn't be that respected or worshiped by non-halfling, as Thamir and Chaldira show pretty obviously) would have been interesting. Also, I love halflings, and I really enjoy how they are underclass "salt of the earth" kind of people in this setting, rather than the "funny happy guys" from dnd, but I feel like out of the (original) core ancestries, they are the most underused by far. Beyond that disapointment tho, his story of Norgorber was really good, he feel like he could genuinely have been a player character from an actual pathfinder/dnd game, or the main character of a fantasy book serie that manage to ascend to godhood, which to me is what every ascended god is meant to represent. Managing to do that without making him feel like a "Gary Stue" was impressive, and I think it work so well specifically because it also show some of his greatest failure, and how other people (his parents) had to bail him out and pay the price for his mistakes. Honestly, even if it was just a summary, his history in Vyre reminded me of Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy, which is pretty high praise. It made me want a novelisation of that story, even if I know that it being actually as good as that trilogy is very unlikely.
I feel like the nex-geb conflict would be even easier to have an AP for each side because while "cheliax vs rebel" is clearly evil vs good (and fighting good people isn't that popular), Geb (the country) feel only marginally more evil than Nex, so it's more easy to have the party "fight bad guys" no matter what side of the war they are on. Since both side are monstruous, it become easy to have an adventure where the "main villain" is something trully evil that even a party of pure hero would want to destroy, while keeping the "monstruous" part of their own side far from the party. They could even split it in three AP, one where the player work for Geb against Nex (and where they get to use the undead options again), one where it's the opposite, and one where the party come from Alkensar or the Mana Waste and the goal is to stop the war before it trully goes back to how it was before and it devastate everything once again.
How can Paizo know what the GM has done with the NPCs? What if the NPC dies? What if they PCs don't even bother talking with that NPC and they create a relationship with some other NPC Paizo wasn't expecting? I do have to point out that quite a lot of the 1e AP did have NPC keeping their role between books, and simply said "we assume that NPC is still alive and important, if they're not, NPC X or Y can fill the role, if they can't, you have to make up some way to reach the same effect". So this argument is kinda moot. However, NPC dissapearing aren't that much of an issue in the few 2e AP I read, blood lord, curtain call, season of ghost and warden all mention NPC from previous books rather often, so it might just be an "early 2e" problem? In the end, I think the crux of the issue here is mostly that the writers for latter modules didn't have a lot of info on what was happenning in the early ones, so they didn't necessarily knew the important NPC of these module and thus create new ones, even if they filled the exact same role. And from what I saw, it seems that this issuehave been mostly fixed in the recent APs. Altho I do have to say, NPC that could actively travel with the party and become "lesser party member" is something I miss in the 2e APs. I get why they aren't as many of them, there isn't any cohort and the math is much, much tighter, but these NPCs were the most memorable in 1e and their absence here is felt.
For Brevoy, I know it's a risk of making it a Game of Thrones clone, but I feel like making it one of the few places in Golarion where Apsu and Dahak have a significant worship base would help make it distinct from other areas. I'm starting to think that it's possible that Choral return and reconquer the country to turn it into a dragon-ruled land "off camera", or at least that we won't have an adventure where the players are able to prevent the takeover. A "dragon land" ruled by a very powerfull draconic tyran might be more conductive to adventuring than "game of throne land". And the noble houses could then be split between those that decided to support the new order to keep their position, and those that were forced "underground" because they want to continue the fight and drive off Choral.
At the end, it circle back to the same thing, the fundamental goal of Daemonhood is irreconciliable with druidic philosophy, because it demand a complete destruction of the natural order (along with everything else). But it doesn't matter for the Apocalypse Rider mythic destiny, because it doesn't ask you to believe or to want to follow that goal. It only ask that you relinquish your soul, and only become an instrument of destruction going forward. A druid that seek power in order to face (what they consider) ennemies of nature may find it here, and as long as they focus all of their attention (and destructiveness) to these ennemies of nature, they'll respect both their druidic and Apocalyspe Rider vows. The destiny is fine for druids, because it appeal to the druids that want to either take revenge on foes of nature, or to destroy them, while confident that the wild will reclaim it afterward. Wether they'll actually manage to avoid harming nature in their rampage is another story entirely. Ironically, despite considering the daemons "the worse evil" for the Pathfinder cosmology, I think that Apocalypse Rider is far easier to justify as a member of a "good" party than an Archfiend. The Archfiend as presented feel like it only fit for characters that is at home with said fiends, someone that already was evil and whose evilness and mythic power mixed into giving them archfiend power, while the Rider feels like it could fit for any desperate character that want or need power and accepted to damn themselves to obtain it, something that work even for fully heroic characters (or at least, fully heroic until they became Riders, of course).
I'd like to see an expansion of the "variant druidic orders" included in Warden of Wildwood, the spore and cultivation order were really interesting, but with only a single feat and two focus spell (one for the cultivation one), it kinda limit the theme. In general, I think druid is in need of expansion because most of it's feat are order locked, leaving the player narrower choice of feat than the other class once they pick their starting order, unless they pick order explorer to unlock more option, which works fine but is a bit underwhelming when the orders don't actually interact with one another. So having each order be expanded a bit, or given some "payoff" for crossing orders would go a long way. Also, while plant order get lots of great and flavorful plant-related feats beyond simply growing the order central feature (the leshy familiar), the animal and untamed order feats are entirely dedicated to their special feature, which make them feel even narrower. Having a few more animal orders feat that interact with animal in general, not just your companion, would be nice. Beyond merely expanding what's already here, I'd be interested by some kind of "spooky druid" option. Something like a special order or class archetype adding a bit of primal necromancy to the druid, maybe even letting the player go down the path of a Siabrae. If not for the druid, then for some other primal caster at least, as "natural undeath" is a whole great aestetic that's rather lacking for the moment. Maybe with an animist or necromancer class archetype that swap their spell list for the primal one? And finally, beyond just the druid class, we need more insects. And more fungus. Swarmkeeper wasn't enough, spore order (as is) wasn't enought. More bug companion, more insect and mushroom themed spells and feats. There isn't enough of them, there will never be enough of them.
Golarion Halflings have been historically held at the bottom of the social ladder, and while I'm not aware of any specific "halfling thief guild", they have very often been represented as member of such organisation, due to their low social standing and them being traditionally good rogues. Furthermore, the Bellflower Network is an "underground railway/resistance type of organisation that is very halfling themed, and have a lot of contacts with such organisation, as they need to rely on underworld connections and undercover actions. So a "thieves guild", halfling themed AP could work very well as a campaign in golarion, for a more urban and undercover setting where the party must escape the law.
Alas, this wasn't to be then. Altho the comment about adventure needing to be important to the "meta" of the schedule is making me think. It's true that at least half, if not more, of the APs are directly linked with other close releases, that way the AP hype the lore/rule book and vice versa. So if we can guess the "future meta", we have more of a shot at guessing the AP. Furthermore, if we can influence the following lore/rule books, we get to (indirectly) influence whatever AP might come with them. We already know what AP will be releasing for the next books we know of (spore war and the vampire AP), and they will cover the NPC codex, reprint of Guns & Gears and magic academy books. Appart from that last one, which may tie into the vampire AP, I don't expect much synergies for the other two books, NPC codex seems like it's going to be widely usefull but too broad to theme an adventure around. I'm not sure exactly when Starfinder 2e official release is supposed to happen, but since it's apparently completely compatible with Pathfinder 2e, I'd say there's a good chance that we'll see a Numeria AP allowing the players to use some starfinder options around that time. It might also come with a "Lost Omen : Broken Lands" book, in which case we might see another AP in that region follow closely, like what happenned for Blood Lords and Outlaws of Alkensar, and such book would be a good opportunity for a Brevoy or (even better) a River Kingdom AP (I like my swamps and woods). Altho, it might instead be an occasion to go back to Sarkoris, in a "reclaim the land" story, which would tie back to the magic academy book again. Lots of people are already speculating about the AP that might come with the newly revealed classes, and guessing a Geb/Nex conflict AP, but having a "runic" class along with the necromancer make me think of something more centered on western Avistan, so we might see the Tar Baphon plot being furthered, or an AP in new Thassilon (or both). Well, I suppose that now all that I have left to do is to champion for a bellflower network "organisation book", or for another nature themed book if I want to see the themes that interest me the most. Since we just got a big nature rulebook, maybe a lorebook instead would do the trick? Something centered on the first world maybe, or the green faith... Altho I wouldn't say no to a second Howl of the Wild.
(For what it's worth, the plans I've had for a Brevoy thing have never been a 1 to 20 Adventure Path, but have for many years been a standalone adventure.) Oh, a standalone adventure is very different from what I pictured from this region, if you can, mind to tell us what would be the likely level range for that plan? Or at least wether it would be a low, mid or high level one?
Because changes always have to have an upside to them? It doesn't always come from a position of positivity. Sometimes changes happen just to happen. Maybe Paizo feels being able to make demiplanes should be relegated to Mythic beings instead of just something some high level lucky person can do. At best any upside change to this comes from a position of speculation, which is no less speculation than the slippery slope counter argument of "Paizo changing rituals means our entire game is going to fall apart" that the other side keeps constantly flailing around at the wall hoping for it to stick. Where is this "other side" you speak of that apparently think the entire game is falling appart because of the ritual change? All I've seen in this threads is people criticising this change, people expressing disapointment about it, and people hoping that this kind of change won't be a reoccuring thing, but no one claiming that it's "the end of Pathfinder" or anything. Criticism isn't a death sentence, it doesn't mean you consider the entire thing to be worthless, it just mean pointing out what you think are flaws so that they can be improved upon. Truthfully, I find this whole counterargument to be bizarre. I'd understand if people disagreed with the criticism because they found the new rule to be a positive for whatever reason, I can understand a difference of opinion or priorities, but you don't even seems to like the new rule, at best you're neutral about it. It seems that you disagree with the criticism merely because it's criticism and criticism is intrinsically bad somehow.
I mean, an AP about the Brevic civil war don't have to result in Brevoy splitting in lots of tiny countries. The country have two big hanging plot threads right now : - The rising tension between the noble houses, with house Surtova trying to fill up the void left by Choral's line in an obvious powergrab, and other houses wanting to achieve their independance. - The upcomming return of Choral himself, which have been hinted at since the original Kingmaker release, and was further pushed forward in 2e in the "lost omen legend" book. In my eyes, the most obvious plot that arrise from this conjecture would be an AP that start as a "civil war" AP where the party support one of the noble house (probably the Aldori/Restov), in a setup close to the "war for the crown" AP, but end with Chorral crashing the party and trying to reconquer "his" kingdom, with the PC goal shifting to supporting a single house to having to unite all of them to face his draconic armies. Afterward, the status quo of such story likely won't be a balkanisation of the region, but either the house that the PC supported becoming the de facto new rulers of Brevoy, or (more likely) Brevoy transitionning from a central monarchy to a federation of allied kingdoms, that still have a central "ruling council" of some kind that keep unity between all the regions. Now that I think about it, I wonder if the rise of "3 parter" AP may have been a factor that pushed this one at the back of the line, like James said. This story of civil war turning into a union of all the side against a greater threat seems "too big" for a three parter, but perfect for a full 1-20 campaign.
I have to say that Mythic is not only a 'game' or 'NPC' thing. It's hard to define, but it's a thing that does exist in-world. Forces of Fate that even more powerful than for 'normal' great heroes. Something that gives them a real chance to become really god-like. Yes, mythic isn't only a gameplay abstraction, but Karzoug wasn't mythic, that's what the "he can do that because he's an NPC and not you" meant.
Once again, I have to point that "this rule is fine because you can ignore it" isn't an argument in favor of the rule. If the only quality of a rule is that it's easy to ignore, then it's not a good rule. Everybody know they can ignore any rule they want in their game, that's not the point here. The point is wether including this rule, tied to these rituals, in the first place was a good idea, from both a gameplay and a lore standpoint.
In short, there are numerous setting devices that merely work because the plot requires them to work, and can do so without any rules behind them, like gods, demiplanes, etc. Mechanics are there for the players and (some) NPC interactions. That is it. The rest can be handled with GM handwaving and setting requirements establishing them for us, mechanics be damned. I really don't get why "the GM can handwave the requirement away / make up new rules" bring to this conversation. This can be said for every single rule of the game, yes, if the GM want, the GM can change it, everybody knows that, but threads like this are talking about the unmodified rules of the game. Mythic rituals works on specific rules that prevent anyone nonmythic from casting them, and as long as other nonmythic option to achieve these effect aren't printed, the rule completely forbid nonmythic characters to ever create a demiplane or do anything like the other mythic rituals. Yes, GMs can handwave that rule away, or homebrew some exception or some other way to reach the same effects, but all of these options are outside the current rules of the game. So it's normal that people complain about that rule if they find that it negatively impact the game.
I wonder what the iconics will look like. There was already an iconic necromancer they introduced for Hell's Vengeance, but that was when they were creating "evil iconics" for the evil AP, and she was a wizard necromancer. I wouldn't be mad if they keep her, her design is too good to be left asside, but they might not want a character made to be evil (and to be of a different class) to represent their new class. Since Orcs and Leshy are new to the core ancestry and don't have any Iconic, I wonder if they're going to be it. I'd be really down for an iconic leshy necromancer.
I does seems more interesting, but I have to ask, do you envision the mythic resistance "reaction" as something the mythic monster can do after they roll their save, or as something to announce before the roll? As for the major resistance, it seemed too strong at first, but after thinking about it some more, it seems fine. Reaching that level eat more of a monster "budget", making them more vulnerable to spells, require the use of a very limited ressource, and the monster completely shrugging off one hit do bring have a certain "badass" factor to it, which is lacking to most monster mythic ability (they are good, very usefull and mechanically powerfull, but recharging a spell or rerolling a dice don't have that "oomph" factor in my eyes).
Strange though it may sound, mastery of void/vital essence may not be the only or even primary tool for controlling undead. After all, if that were the case, surely Primal casters would make the best necromancers for corporeal undead, given their specialization in matter and vitality--the two primary ingredients of a zombie or skeleton--rather than the only tradition that generally has no access to undeath. I do have to say tho, having some primal undeath option would be nice. Fungus/plant zombie is a very cool aestetic, and I generally really like the "spooky druid" niche in the (admitedly pretty rare) games that have this option.
Back then, I gave them the solution that it still works because a character like Sorshen can be justified as a mythic Wildspell. But if the official stance is that Runelords are not mythic, then that justification no longer applies. Lore wise, I believe that Sorshen is indeed mythic. Her and Xanderghul were the only two runelords that obtained mythic power if I got my lore right, with Karzoug and Alaznist both trying really hard to obtain such power themselves but being unable to do so before starfall happenned. So I'm gonna go against my own side here and say that your original justification for why this ritual could be mythic despite your player not being mythic themselves still work.
Maybe you wouldn't have any problem, but the written rules would. If your PC somehow got their hand on a runewell they can use as they want, by RAW they still wouldn't be able to create a demiplane. The party could amass every single artifact and magic item in the world, if they're not mythic, they can't make a demiplane. That's the issue here, the fact that the new rules completely gated it off. The fact that Karzoug needed tons of ressources is inconsequential, because even if the PC retrace his exact steps, they wouldn't be able to do it. The only way for your nonmythic PC to create a demiplane or cast freedom or emprisonment is for you as a GM to decide to completely disregard the mythic ritual rules. And sure, ignoring the mythic ritual rules is the simplest thing to do as a GM... but I don't think Paizo is printing rule expecting us to ignore them, they're printing them because they expect the players to follow them. So indicating when a rule just feel like a net negative is necessary.
What is a wizard in the game world, though? Ok, wizards aren't the best example here because there are actual schools they can graduate from, but what's a rogue? What's an oracle? Is there some Golarion standard that grants you those titles when you show that you are able to learn a specific set of abilities, but not certain others? A wizard is a savant that studied arcane magic (the "widest" magical tradition) to learn to control it. Now, the Wizard can be called a "sage" in it's culture, or a "mage", or an "adept", or they could even be called a "sorcerer", but it doesn't change the fact that the wizard is defined by "in world" characteristic, beyond the mechanic of their class. The sage, mage, adept and "sorcerer" of the four different culture could come together and would understand that beyond their title and cultural difference, they have sensibly the same job. Likewise for actual sorcerers, druid, cleric, oracle, etc etc... No matter their skills or area of expectise, a wizard is a wizard even when we completely abstract the gameplay element, due to the fact that they all share well defined "in world" characteristic. Most classes are like this, I'd say the only classes that are mostly "gameplay abstraction" without hard in world definition are a handfull of the martial classes. Fighter, rogue, barbarian and ranger, any of those could be a mercenary in the same troop, or soldiers of the same rank in the same army, and while their way of fighting is different, that difference isn't as "hard" as the difference that exist between a wizard and a druid. "In world", I expect that a "bow ranger" that meet a "bow fighter" and a "dual weapon ranger" would think that they are closer to the fighter than the other ranger. So indeed, if a human wizard PC meeting a human wizard NPC, there is an expectation that the NPC can't do think the player wouldn't be able to do if they had access to the NPC ressource and levels. "In world", they are the same thing, therefore they come with the expectation that no matter how different the PC and NPC building rule are, the NPC will not have any ability that are completely impossible for the PC. If they do, then it break the suspension of disbelief, which is very important for roleplaying game.
I think the real triky thing here is that historically, AP were the PC morality is meant to shift within the story is difficult to pull off, since unless the player know what's expected of them and are really on board, they risk to either "switch side" before they're supposed to, or to refuse to do so when they should (Second Darkness being the most blatant exemple). It's going to feel really railroady if the narrative force them to work for the bad guys for a while, and then to switch at a specific point. This kind of story can be great, but work way better in movie, books or videogame. Another (better, or at least safer) way of doing so in tabletop roleplay would be to bake this "side switching" in the basic synopsis of the AP itself, that is, to announce to the player that this is an AP where they play people that used to work with the bad guys but switched side. But this really limit the amount of "pre-switch" content the AP can include, because if this is announced in the player guide itself, then it's going to be limited to the backstory of the AP and maybe the introductory chapters, it can't really last longer when everyone know the "twist".
Yeah, technology as a whole is neutral, it doesn't mean there can't be an adventure were the villain are technologically oriented and the PCs are "nature oriented". Like, "lawfullness" was neutral, but there still was APs where the party were expected to be chaotic (and good), fighting villains that were lawfull (and evil). And the opposite was true, there was AP that expected the party to be lawfull (heroes), while their opponent were chaotic (villains). The moral neutrality of a concept don't mean that every single character and story that use it have to morally neutral themselves, that would be silly. The idea that the only good story for a nature themed party is to have a nature themed villain (and that the only good story for a technology themed party is to have a technology themed villain) is silly. In general, I think the opposite is mostly true, the best AP and stories are about villain that are thematically opposed the heroes, not when they are "similar but evil". Barbarian vs techno-wizard, paladins vs demons, revolutionary vs evil regime. I mean Kingmaker is a "civilisation VS wild" AP where the party is unambiguously on the side of civilisation, the opposite isn't that big an ask.
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