Scarablob's page

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

You know what's not a difficult-to-balance, difficult-to-remember house rule? Deciding not to use content from a specific book, or a specific section of a book. That's how multi-book RPGs work. There are going to be people who don't own a copy of this rulebook who continue to play in this specific way for years, and it's not a houserule. It's just playing with the rules they have.

It's a very specific kind of gamer who doesn't play with a ruleset, but allows that ruleset to overwrite content from their existing game that they then have to throw out. That kind of gamer doesn't make for a great GM, however vigorously you white knight for them. You still own the official books that have the previous version in them. You can still play with those rules. Paizo publishing additional rules didn't take that right away from you by force. Just play with the rules you prefer, like you decided to do when you agreed not to use Mythic in your game.

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.

Given the example provided by JJ, I would have no problem with a PC creating a demiplane in the exact same way that Karzoug did.

It's just that no PC will ever put all these efforts and time and ressources in it. But if they do, then the GM can just say Yes.

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.

That's a really interesting idea - I know it's not normal for Paizo to lock your PC's narrative in too much from the AP premise, but when they've done it before it has really worked for me. Without spoilers, Strange Aeons has a pretty restricted set of narratives available for the last several years of the PC's lives, and I've got a lot of positive feedback on that from people. In this case, saying all the PCs start off working for - though not necessarily agreeing with - an exploitative group that is harming nature gives you some really interesting room for different possible character arcs. Especially with how common 3-book APs are nowadays, it's much less of a risk than it used to be.

The tricky bit would be that it's still an AP - so they need to change their mind at the 'right' time - which is why I think your idea of them ending up opposing something as messed up as fiends is a good way to do it.[..]

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".

The Nature = good, Technology = evil concept is not adequate AP material IMO.

In Golarion, Technology is clearly neutral. And of course it can be used for evil goals, but that is because of the villains using it.

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.

In the "Not an excuse but still important contextual information" category...

** spoiler omitted **...

Back on topic now, on the subject of "NPC being allowed things the player can't have", I think the real issue here isn't the notion of them having different rules at all, and more about them not following the same rules on the few subject where they are directly comparable to the PC.

Obviously, a magical monsters can have abilities the PC never could. Obviously, the great ancient lord of greed have access for far more ressources and minion than the PC, he can possess multiple artifacts, all of that is fine. But that same lord of greed is still a human, and still a wizard, so the PC come to expect that in those regard, he work with the same rule they do, so if he suddently started doing things a player wizard couldn't do if they had access to all of his ressources (like if he was spam casting "quickenned mass heal" for exemple), then it's going to break immersion.

Pathfinder 1e is very good at avoiding that, thanks to the fact that foes are built with the same rule as the PC, and that all the powers the PC can't have are almost always due to unique monster rule or specially made artifact. Pathfinder 2e, despite a few hiccups in the starting APs, and despite having entirely different "building rule" for player and NPC, was also generally very good at avoiding that. But cutting off these rituals from nonmythic caster did break immersion on that subject, because now these NPC aren't doing something the PC could if they had their ressources, they are doing something the PC can't do, no matter what, showing that they indeed operate on different rules.

Back to the "AP where the players are defender of nature against capitalist/industrial exploitation", after reflexion, I think the Horseman of famine (or rather, a daemon affiliated to him) would be a great end boss in such an AP, and such scenario could make for a nice thematic AP, with the heroes being nature/fey themed and the villain being technology/daemon themed. And of the 4 horsemen, I feel like famine would fit the most with a "destruction of the environment" story.

It can start setting up a mortal villain which is a ruthless profitereer, using strange technology and summonning daemons to bolster his troops (maybe the daemons offered him the tech, maybe he's a technic league survivor or something), but then when it look like the party finally corner him, his daemon "allies" decide that they no longer have any use for him and unleash their devastation upon the world. Not only would it make a more epic ending than just defeating the "evil CEO" (which, while hatable, isn't really "epic end of campaign boss" material), but it would also be a fitting end for the story, first dealing with the one responsible for the devastation, and then dealing with the consequences of his actions.

I do think that regardless of how mythic work or how the rules are implemented in general, taking some rituals that were "normal" preremaster and locking them as "mythic only" wasn't a great move. I think a lot of peoples were excited for mythic precisely because of the prospect of it being a "higher level of play" that would allow them to have "bigger/badder" effect and stories, but taking an existing option and locking it to mythic gives off the feeling that rather than building a new "tier" of play with higher ceiling, instead they lowered the ceiling of "normal" play and build mythic in the now vacant space.

It isn't really the case as to my knowledge it's the only existing option that was "taken away" from normal play, and mythic is way more than that, but I think the move still left a bad taste for a lot of peoples. I can get why some of these ritual can "feel" more mythic than normal (altho I do think Wish would deserve the mythic tag way more than Emprisonment or Freedom), but then the rule shouldn't have been so absolute in forbidding anyone nonmythic from casting them.

I'm guessing it's regularly raided by scared townsfolk armed with torches and pitchforks. Or it's hidden in some ways.

But ustalav being "gothic horror land", it couldn't not include paranoid villagers that look upon any scholar and outsider with fears, since half these story have these people be innocent victim of mob justice, and the other half have these people be secret monsters that feed on the people or unleash horrible things upon the world.

I would love a full on morally grey or evil AP. Let us work once again for Geb! Or Cheliax. Or Norgorber!

There already was an AP where the party worked for Cheliax, it wasn't very well received. Altho I think the main problem wasn't the fact that it was an evil AP, but rather the fact that the party were minions always taking orders from higher ups and following someone else's will.

The party being henchmen of an NPC is already a hard sell in general, as most player prefer to play independant characters, who may ponctually work for someone but isn't anyone's "employee", but coupled with the evil part, it didn't appeal to a lot of people. I think it's because the peoples interested by the prospect of "playing evil characters" are more interested with the "I get to do whatever I want" aspect of it, which isn't really possible when you're someone else's minion. I think for an evil AP, the party being thieves, bandits, pirate or ruthless treasure hunters (with the motivation of the AP being a big pile of money) would appeal to more people.

The Blood Lord AP isn't that evil, but it had the right idea for the direction of the story I think, having he party being a self interested and independant group seeking to climb the ranks was a good call, they're only minion at the very begginning (and somewhat at the very end when Geb become their direct patron), so the party don't have the feeling that they're just employee doign their boss' bidding, they do what they do for their own interest out of their own volition. Thanks to that, I think the AP could have been written to involve some significantly more "evil" acts and scenes without being as unappealing as Hell's Vengeance.

Does that mean that Karzoug is retroactively mythic now, since he did have his demiplane?

I get why it's done, but I feel that completely gating these rituals off for nonmythic play isn't the right move, especially for rituals like freedom or emprisonment. The heroes having to find a way to free an emprisonned something so that it can help them in some way, or to seal away a great evil at the end of their journey is a pretty fufilling plotbeat, and now one that's locked for any nonmythic party.

I think that at the very least there need to be some "loophole" that would allow a fully nonmythic party to cast mythic ritual in some circumstances. Like some special and rare consumable that wave the mythic point cost if it's used. Or a rule that say that if one use an artifact as the focus of a ritual, it count as spending a mythic point. This way, it would make mythic ritual more exciting for everyone since you could do it even in a nonmythic game, but finding what you need for the ritual would be a quest in itself (while mythic party would have the advantage of being able to cast those as freely as normal rituals).

So an adventure that starts with a Thanatos Daemon taking level 4-5 players to Abaddon, with their only hope out is to make it to the Awaiting-Consumption. Or some other place.

A "plannar survival" AP where the players have to fend for themselves in such an hostile plane at low level is also an idea that interest me very much, and Abbadon seems like the perfect setting for it. My only fear is that such a setting don't allow much opportunity for levity and it may be too grim and overbearing if the players can't leave Abbadon for multiple module. Maybe having them actually escape the plane at some point, like having module 2 happen in a celestial realm, then having to go back into it (but this time willingly and for a specific purpose) during the last module could solve that issue, it would give them a bit of respite, and going from hunted victim escaping the plane to hero plunging back into it would be a great journey for the party.

I remember homebrewing some basis for what "survival at low level on Abbadon" might entail and posting it on these forum some time ago, I still haven't had the opportunity to use it since my players are still on rise of the runelord.

That said, other than themes, I'm also eager to hear about what sorts of monster themes or genre themes people are interested in, beyond just generalized themes and regional themes (all of which are still very interesting and important to continue sharing!). Or even PC build themes. We've done 3 of these so far—the "dwarf" and "orc" and "elf" themed campaigns. Would people be interested in us exploring that in other areas, but instead of focusing on ancestry themes, doing it with religions, or organizations, or even classes?

Well if you're offering, I do have a certain idea that would make for a magnificent AP with strong organisation, ancestry and class themes all at once. Playing as members (or partners) of a certain underground Network would be amazing, and it would both fit a "halfling AP" and "stealth AP" (and even "rebellion AP") at once, and these are themes that to my knowledge aren't the focus point of any 2e AP so far.

As for monsters, I would speak for the deamons but I believe that some daemon related path may be coming up no matter what, with the emphasis on Szuriel (and them making fitting allies of the Whispering Tyran whenever that plot thread is picked back up), so I'm gonna advocate for the Qlippoth instead. I love them, I wish we saw them a bit more, and I want to see what the 2e incarnation of the Iatavos look like, since apparently each one have different abilities, and the 1e one was probably defeated at the end of a certain path.

Also, defender of nature path, but I already taked enought about that.

I think it had to do with how domain worked in 1e. As people said in the thread already, there, deities had 5 domains each, demideity (beings like the archdevil or demon lords) 4 each, and "quasideity" (beings like the infernal duke or nascent demon lords) had 3 each. However, despite this making them seemingly rather unified and "equal" to each other of the same rank, the way alignment intersected with domains made the deity at the extremities of the chart far more narrow than the ones in the middle.

In 1e, there were "good/evil/lawfull/chaotic" domain, and a divinity that landed in one of these alignment had to have that domain, no matter what. So chaotic evil deities for exemple only had 3 "free" domain, since two had to be locked to chaotic and evil. Nascent demon lords with their 3 total domain only had a single specific domain to call their own. on the other side of the spectrum, true neutral deity had to had 5 wholy "special" domain, even if their lore was rather narrow and the last few were headscratcher to find.

1e tried to solve this issue with the "subdomains", which were slightly tweaked variation of existing domains, and that weren't tied to such strict rules, so they could give any "vast" deity a number of additional subdomain to make up for the limitation, while not giving much (or any) to "focussed" deities. But while this system allowed for more flexibility, it was pretty clearly a bandaid, a way to go around their own rule to give as much domain as they want to the deities they felt were lacking.

So in 2e, they decided to change the system in the first place to not be so constrained by it. They ditched the alignment domains altogether to avoid the "boring obligatory domains", decided to give every single divinity, no matter the power, the same number of domain, so that player wouldn't nerf themselves by picking a "lesser divinity" to follow, locked it to "4", since they sometime felt that 3 was too little to chose from for some deity and 5 was sometime too much for some others, and changed the subdomain system into "alternate domain" ones so that they can still break their own rule and give some deities that feel "vaster" more area of interest, with the caveat that these alternate domains are more difficult to obtain.

Does Razmir priest not evangelize beyond the borders? Sure, within Razmiran, they can just rely on the power of the state to dissapear any scholar (or anyone really) that try to reveal the fraud or question them, and they'd only be embarassed by the most blatant and uncoverable show of incompetency, but I though that there were also "missionaries" that were trying to expand the church beyond the kindgom, am I mistaken?

Lost Omens Divine Mysteries page 23

" True Gods are not alwasys the oldest, though all those-like you, my Lady-that are so ancient as to have existed before the Age of Creation appear to fall into this category. Among these are Abadar, NETHYS, Sarenrae, Calistria, Gozreh, Asmodeus, Torag, Gorum, and that horror Rovagug. But the Ascended-Iomedae, Cayden Cailean, and Norgorber-are quite young and yet must also be counted among true gods because they are so powerful."

Nethys is supposed to be an ascended together with Irori and also one of the young gods? not before the age of creation.

Confirmation that Nethys is actually an ancient god that pretend to be an ascended human so he can hang out with the younlings?

Explain why he seems mad, the incarnation of all magic must have no idea how mortal actually act.

But in all seriousness, I think they intended for either Desna or Erastil to be here instead of Nethys. It is interesting tho that apparently Gozreh is so ancient, when I always though that he was born along with golarion ecosystem (and thus, after Rovagug's cage was closed).

For your first question, every cleric know that their faith let them cast not only divine spells, but also a few other "choice spells" depending on their god's tradition and portfolio. Therefore, you still have plausible deniability if someone see you cast a few occult spells, "Razmir is great, he let me cast those". It get a lot more flimsy if someone see lots of nondivine spells being cast by "Razmir's clerics", but most people don't have the background to know that much about occult and divine magic, and those that have don't necessarily have the opportunity to observe "Razmir's cleric" long enought to observe the discrepancy.

And for the few who do have the opportunity to notice the discrepancy, a subtil mix of "we can do this because Razmir is that much better than other gods" and "you're lying/mistaken and are amongst those that want to drag our god through the mud" do the trick. I expect "Razmir isn't an actual god" to be a known theory within Razmiran, but that a lot of people think that it's simply conspiracy theory or slander, and for the majority of the population to be in an in-between "lots of people say lots of different things and I'm not sure what to believe in, I mean the town magician oppenly said he wasn't a god, and he's the person that know the most about these things around here, but I did see his priest healing people, so...."

For those outside Razmiran, I expect the "he's a fraud" to be prevalent and often repeated, as people from neighboring countries mock the Razmiran's population for believing such silly thing. But they don't think that because they trully know better, they say that because believing that the king of the country next door is an actual god is rather scary, so they latch on the scholars that (rightly) proclaim that Razmir's priest don't actually do divine magic but are mere occultist. I think that for those people outside of Razmiran that aren't learned in occult or divine magic, seeing a "priest of Razmir" in action would very quickly shut up their mockery, even if they did hear about it all being a sham.

I hold out hope that our big rebel AP for PF2 is about the Bright Lions, fighting against Walkena's rule in Mzali. Strength of Thousands explicitly said "we're not doing that one yet, " but it's been a few years... and we have Mythic rules, now!

That would be quite an awesome setting for such an AP, having "the sun" for ennemy in an AP where the party have to stay in the shadow is quite fitting.

The only sore spot for me would be that I don't think the Network would appear in that story, but oh well, I can live with it if it's in Mzali.