Seisho's page

While I am also annoyed by the ammount of stuff that is coming for 5e instead of literally anything else

I have to say 2 things before we continue:

1. this might not be the entirely correct forum, but I am not sure because
2. please use a few paragraphs, a wall of text like that is really hard to parse

I had a long day today, but I am sure other people would be more willing to say something if that whole block got split up into a few smaller chunks that are easier to digest

Okay, not in detail read through all the posts but a few things to the world that can be said and are likely good to know:

1) Technology: Many parts of the world act on a high or late medieval technology level, there are exceptions. Alkenstar in the Mana Wastes and Ustalav hav basically reached Victorian/Steampunk/Clockpunk Tech level and stuff like that can be found in trade centers (like Absalom)

1.1) Guns: The general baseline assumption for guns in this world is cartrige based, break action, smoothbore guns - which is realistically the closest to the mechanical side of how they function

2) Recources: Golarion has a decent ammount of natural recources that can be found roughly where expected. The world also has access to recources in multiple ways that are not quite as natural.
Among other things there is a stable permanent portal to the plane of earth below oprak which grants virtually infinite access to stone and metal of all kinds. There are other places where the planar boundaries are thin and magic bleeding onto the material plane can influence the abundance and composition of recources. And sometimes a adamantine dragon flies by, scratches off some old carapace on a mountain side and leaves a adamantine deposit big enough to feed generations of people.
Theres also multiple giant cave systems, not easily accessible but there are entry points and settlements in there. Which makes trade to underground recources in the area easier.

3) Air travel: It is still rare and only availible in a few places. One of the simplest reasons why it is still rare is just what you find in the air: Next to birds you go hippogriffs, griffons, drakes in different sizes, real dragons, rocs, air elementals and the occassional outsider. Despire being above a lot of the usual trouble, travel is not neccessarily safer since the things that you meet that are dangerous are *very dangerous*
there is of course an argument that there are no sea serpents or krakens in the sky and you can meet giants virtually anywhere

4) Ancestries around the world: There is no real good rule of thumb here. Some settlements in some areas have actual population numbers, but things can easily skew in one way or another.
Imagine Taldor for example. Classical medieval area, many humans around.
But there is for example one big forest where fey are aplenty and druids live (mostly) peacefully. You can expect a village there to have a few more feytouched people or sprites then you would find in other places.
It can be very localized (and whatever your campaign needs) want a village full of tieflings Cambions? Someone has slain a big demon there about two decades ago. Bam, you got it.

5) Classes around the world: There is little guideline here. Usually you can just apply what seems logical to you, there are a few pointers though:
-The elves of Kyonin like to master magic, bow and sword, they likely have a higher level of magi then most others (theres even a specific magus academy in the country)
-Several nations have named big magic academies (Magaambya on Garund, Nex' magic academies, absalom) those will have, especially close to the places in question, more wizards and other mages, sometimes with specific archetypes and schools
-Technology and science based classes have the highest concentration in the mana wastes, ustalav and absalom as three of the prime centers of learning
-Rahadoum outlaws divine worship, you will have almost no divine casters there
-otherwise for divine classes you have to look at where the gods are worshipped and you will easily find points of origin

a few more general tips:

1) If you come from pathfinder 1e, treat this as a new system. You have to unlearn a whole lot anyway, easiest way of dealing with it is pretending its a new system - it virtually is

2) encounter level: no matter if you want a heist or a dungeon, there are two easy ways to set it: look at the level of the party or just set a level ton the place.
The first one is the safe way to make adequate challanges and encounters. There are some good hints for doing that.
The second one is more appropriate if you want to highlight something.
The party is mid level and tries to rob a small village? Well, they are going to have a bad time because if they dont have a retired adventure, they are likely to have just low level gard your party can oneshot (makes for a good show of how far they have come)
They want to rob the temple of abadar that also functions as bank with high security vaults in absalom? Good luck with that. They will have low level clerks, sure, but the guards are mid to high level with a few elites in between and magical countermeasures. They got the money and the right right clerics/wizards on their payroll, they can afford it.

3) Sustainability: As was said before, focus spells and the heal wounds skill are your new friends here. No more lugging around a fifty charge want of a minor heal spell because its just the cheapest option (never liked that anyway)
Everybody with some wisdom and proficiency in the medicine skill can somewhat reliable patch wounds
if you got the medic dedication or are a forensics investigator, even better and easier!
And focus spells can be used one per character every 10 minutes if you are left in peace, so out of combat healing is decent as soon as you got a champion or one of several other classes/archetypes

Came recently up in my campaign. One of the party members is a geniekin and theorized they might go to the elemental planes after they die instead of the 'regular' afterlife.
Which honestly would surprise me, but made me think.

So what happens if elementally hypercharged beings or straightup elementals dies?

a) they go to pharasma like everybody else
b) they go to the elemental planes and become (re-)incarnated as an elemental
c) something else that nobody at my table thought about

I implore Paizo
stick to what you do
Don't imitate those corporate drone buffoons who don't know the heart of their own game and are only successful because they appear everywhere

Thank you, thats all

Another fun fact about the Rogue Ruffien
if you somehow get a natural weapon with a decent attack
he makes a great wrestler
grabbing makes the enemy off-guard, which means you can make a suplex - as a sneak-attack

Tactical Drongo wrote:

My bigest worry about the reprint of magus is that spellstrike will not be updated *enough*

interaction with save spells is awkward and we have a notibly diminished number of attack spells

I advocated for it before, but I will do so again:
I think a successful (critical) hit with a spellstrike should cause the corresponding (critical) failure in a save spell

I dont mind if the spell just goes kaputt in case of a missed attack, that would be the disadvantage of the otherwise improved action economy

(If that wont be the case I will certainly homebrew it for my tables, but the current state of spellstrike feels just awkward)

I think the problem there is that it would allow much higher rates of applying the game's nastiest effects- things like Dominate or Slow, where a critical failure means being more or less out of the fight or worse.

Then they need to make some other limitation on top

there are ways to work around it
some more efficient then others, but I am sure one could come up with *something*

the big advantage good has over evil
while azata, agathion and angels dont neccessarily agree on their methods, their ultimate goals are similar so they can often enough set their differences (sometimes grudgingly) aside

while demons, daemons, devils and qlippoths is just a battle royale

Okay, my view on things as someone who loves to experiment with builds and gamemasters a lot

1) Medium armor is good, light also, if your campaign goes high level, picking up heavy armor with a feat is a misinvestment as heavy gives you +1 ac over medium, -5ft movementspeed but your proficiency lacks behind by -2

1.1) Light armor has the advantage of being cheaper in the early levels and giving a better saving throw, heavy armors can compensate for that but you need an archetype to really use them properly

2) as said before, tower shields and similar are too action intensive (and possibly slow you down), you are going to be action starved anyway and likely have to use your focus spell for shield raising (or at least want to do that as often as possible for the action economy)
Thhe best shield for most characters is the standard steel shield

3) imaginary weapon is arguibly the strongest spell you can regulary use for your spellstrike, in fact is so good that there are people forbidding the archetype for your class wwith houserules and there are rumors of possible spell nerfs

4) Spellstrike is build with attack spells in mind, we do have enough of those but just in case you should check with your gm on how he rules expansive spellstrike in particular, using the spellstrike to deliver a saving throw spell is not quite as effective in the current ruling, but the system has a certain leaning towards those

5) I would advise against the guardian archetype *except* you get specifically the shield raise taunt
the taunt is a great teamwork skill, but as magus you have no need for dozens of alternate options, one or two are good, but you still have cantrips, a shield to raise and other stuff to do, so many players I know try to avoid getting to many extra action options, since we rarely have the actions anyway

I'm relatively new to the Pathfinder universe and I've been doing a lot of research on Nocticula and Shelyn for an upcoming campaign since they overlap as patrons of art/artist and just curious what others may think. It seems to me like Shelyn's focus is more on technical perfection and conventional beauty when it comes to art and Nocticula focuses more on the artists themselves and on unconventional artworks. So I guess my question is more on the nuances between the two and what might be considered under whose purview since art is so subjective. I also haven't seen much on the relationship between these two given this overlap.

Two deities having similar or even the same areas of concern is not a rarity

or two major sun deities (Desna in Avistan, Shizuru in the Dragon empires)

Overlaps can happen even for big things - it is more that they are linked to the underlying concept of those things, enabling them to tap into the power (via domains, for example)

There are also deities and fiends who are worshipped on differnt planets
their domains certainly dont give them unique authority in those places too

In universe, the divine energies are complicated aligned, so the most surprising things can be either unique, or be around multiple times as area of concern for multiple gods

(which also in turn makes it easy to think up your own homebrew gods and inject them into the setting)

consider also this: the high grade of duskwood is probably the heartwood, so to be able to cut a tree you need to get a tool with at least 8, possibly more hardness
which leaves mostly skymetals and high quality alloys where an ingot of 1 bulk (possibly the heft of a lumberaxe head) costs between 6000 and 9000 gold and which are often hard to work or have downsides using them

so to get that on a 'big scale', which is still restricted to mostly 1 big forest on 1 continent in the whole world, which on top is guarded by fey, werewolves, (magical) beasts and other stuff
you need to invest tens of thousands of gold, just for the tools
then pay the guards that deal with the creatues
possibly get silver and cold iron equipment for them which also costs a ton of money
and then you still need to find a market for that stuff which relies on a likely limited number of craftspeople who can even work those materials and likely need those skymetal tools for themselves too, so likely veterans of the business or people who inherited presttigious workshops

the terming of extracting duskwood on a 'big scale' must be weighed carefully
the upfront investment alone makes it a business that, even with such prices, needs a while to pay back
every tree taken from the duskwood takes probably hours on an end before even transport

why would it be an aura otherwise?

the transcendence specifically states 'one ally within 15ft.' not referencing the aura
and with the aura being irrelevant for transendence it must be for the immanence which also states that allies are protected

for people who want to have a summary

Ronald the rules lawyer has madde an analysis and talks about his thoughts

the first thing you miss: this is an optional rule, you are technically in homebrew territorry so RaW and RaI are all a bit malleable

but as someone who plays dual class regulary I would say if a feat is from one specific class, ot uses that class' dc

as a counterpoint, there are feats which let you choose 'your class or spell dc whichever is higher', those are an exception, but not necessarily one that shuts down the argument

in the end its all gm fiat

Tridus wrote:

Start recording every d20 roll he makes to see if it's actually this bad. If it is, change dice.

I can suggest "The Dark Eye", "Das Schwarze Auge" in German - you have to roll low to succeed there.

We sometimes "promoted" D&D-dice to DSA-dice or vice versa - sometimes even threatening to do so helped!

Don't suggest that xD

the fifth edition suffers from gameyfication, the fourth is a slog to work through and if you are even remotely getting used to the dynamic three action system from pathfinder the combat will be a slog too

and people who complain that blaster casters are not very good or lasting in pathfinder, never had to manage their mp (or AsP - Astral Points) in DSA :P

I would really love a BG3 with pathfinder

there are a few pathfinder games out there but their scale is a few levels at best if they stick close to the rules

I played BG3, but after playing pathfinder2e for so long I couldnt get halfway through the first act because at every gods forsaken corner I stumbled over 5e and thought to myself 'that would work so much smoother in pathfinder'
not to mention that larian did some homebrewing and aimed the campaign to end at lvl 12 because of the technical limitations of the system

ffs please make a pathfinder game, it works the whole level range!
and you get more then one choice in defining your build!
and you dont have to decide between attributes and feats!
and...

I could rant on for a quite a bit
I heard that larian has 2 games in the work, which are both their thing, which I get after being annoyed with wotc

Yes +12 is correct. But I'm not satisfied, can I do more?

lower your standards so the game doesnt get boring with normal scaled encounters

I have an idea what could also work

there are some feats that scale with level and other requirements (first that come to mind are kineticist impulses, but also extra lore)

if the baseline of the companion would be slightly better and we add feats that improve over time, we could reduce the number of feats required and smooth out the progression

like that we could spend 1-2 feats to have a decent companion and a third one to carry it into the endgame, with autmatic stat bumps at certain key levels so it doesnt fall off quite as much

I wonder what kind of enemies OP has to fight that they consistently seem to have their shields with maxed runes breaking quick enough to validate backup shield with a full rune on it

WatersLethe wrote:

I like it just fine. You get reliable access to a shield that you can use for blocking, no matter what loot drops or what shops or crafting are available. That extra point of hardness on an already Sturdy shield is gravy.

Also, blocking three strikes in a battle covers most battles, no? Not only is that a decent amount of damage mitigated, you also have your main class feature competing for the same reaction resource.

Anyway, looks like a matter of taste to me.

In my opinion It really doesn't, a champion with shield of reckoning and reactive shield should AT LEAST use two shields blocks every turn, and if you're not using viking's second shield then you're not gonna last more than three rounds.

Also, +1 hardness Is... Pathetically useless, with all due respect It could've been taken out completely

while I have also mixed feelings towards the new shield ally, this looks a loot like whiteroom mathematics

then again, with your last answer it feels also like your opinion is set in stone and you are going to ignore most, if not all, of the arguments presented here

I think the main problem is that the OP thinks of 'Tanks' in mmo turns and not in tabletop terms

being able to get hit by all the enemies in an encounter standing upright, mitigating damage and forcing them to 'waste' their action on the character while the healer pumps lifepoints into them

Well, I don't want to claim that my suggestion is the ultimate solution
I think I have a decent enough grasp on the balance, but there are surely many players who can do that better

I see the problems that Teridax notes, there has to be some sort of differentiation between non-damage and damage spells, I forgot for a second how easily one could 'abuse' the hitting for some spells

although with the action investment and little other opportunity to reliably land spells, maybe that is what the magi need (?)

I know the errata is mostly a fix for the reduction in attack spell (hence why I put the 'remaster' in the title in quotations)

I really love the class from the concept and it opens so many cool concepts, but it plays a bit clunky and the remaster did not really help

With the last errata pass the Magus can finally use non-attack spells for their Spellstrike. (with the AoE effects and the like put behind Expansive Spellstrike)
But the enemy still has to save regulary against the attack.

IMO
that just does not go far enough
This detracts from the dynamic use of Spellstrike and makes the save spells not very fun to use it with the spellstrike.

You still use two actions for the spell and one for the attack, you only can upgrade the whole process with a focus point - and you don't always have the conflux spell at hand that would be best suited for the situation.

One loses range and the advantage of making an attack roll spellstrike while having to contend with the lower saving throw *AND* making the class more MAD. Not everybody wants their magus to be intelligent, with the reduced number of attack spells they now have to contend with lower saving throw *and* having only a secondary attribute for the spells.

Considering all that I suggest: The Magus should treat saving throw spells as attack spells.
Critically hitting the enemy, acts as the critical failure of the saving throw
regular hitting, makes the spell as if the saving throw is regulary failed
Regular hit - well, either the spell goes poof (which would be a tradeoff I am willing to pay) or it acts as if the enemy was successful at the saving throw
which incidently would lessen the pain of just having wasted up to 3 actions without getting anything for it. (The decision between that I would rather leave up to discussion)

Like the Common language on Eox is Eoxian, the Common Language in Russia is Russian. These are both places your Pathfinder character could go (or maybe even be from).

I dare say the common in pathfinder is more akin to english in europe/north-america

Tactical Drongo wrote:

where do you take it from that pharasma endorses such contracts?

She does maybe not care in particular about them - because that only makes your soul take another route to oblivion
In the end, the stream of souls continues unburdened

The difference is that (lets go with the devil magic powers) whoever did sell their soul ends up as asmodeus pawn or fuel for a while, after which everything continues as it would have anyway

Pharasma doesnt forbid those contracts because they have little to no influence on the penultimate outcome
But it is hard to imagine that she endorses them
(I mean, I could see why she would do it, if the soul goes straight to hell she doesn't have to deal with it)

She considers soul contracts valid reason to claim the soul, even when the ethos of the mortal does not match the plane. (I'm guessing this is why souls start their time in hell being tortured, great way to make people super evil) Her direct agents hand these mortals to devils and gods for promises made by mortals during their life. That's what it means to officially endorse something like that. If she did not endorse slavery, all those contracts would be considered invalid in her court and ignored.

Note that this entire notion of respecting contracts over matching soul ethos does absolutely throw the true importance of ethos matching into question. If souls can be made to align after they arrive, that invalidates a whole lot of the supposed "need" for the current system's methods.

We also know thanks to Belcora, that one can promise the soul of another to a devil in exchange for ___. Anyone with physical control of another person (like their child) could literally hand that person to the devil, claim the reward, and end the contract.

Considering something or straightout endorsing it are still two different things. Do you have a direct source on the Psychopomps delivering those souls? I was always under the impression that, since they are marked to go to a specific place anyway no interference was required.

The important thing of pharasma is tha souls go to a place they can reasonably be to 'live out' their existance and become quintessence by some point. Her point of view is probably like 'well, you made a deal to go there, so you go there' while for everybody else she takes care of the service that they go where it would fit best.

And looking up Belcorra - I admit to not knowing the AP - seems to be a unique cultist/ghost. A unique adversary who does really bad things on a (comparatively) small scale has little influence on the general dealing of things.
But a unique cultist/ghost who does some really f#!$ed up stuff is an excellent plothook and adversary for a group of players.
And she was ultimately defeated by a group of adventurers, so there was little actual damage done

where do you take it from that pharasma endorses such contracts?

She does maybe not care in particular about them - because that only makes your soul take another route to oblivion
In the end, the stream of souls continues unburdened

The difference is that (lets go with the devil magic powers) whoever did sell their soul ends up as asmodeus pawn or fuel for a while, after which everything continues as it would have anyway

Pharasma doesnt forbid those contracts because they have little to no influence on the penultimate outcome
But it is hard to imagine that she endorses them
(I mean, I could see why she would do it, if the soul goes straight to hell she doesn't have to deal with it)

reading to this it feels like Trip has taken personal offense to Pharasma existing

while the old lady is just sitting there, doing her job, basically not bothering anyone

I have 2 times guns and gears in my downloads, but none of them is remastered

amalgam_81 wrote:

Kalaam wrote:

Crossing fingers for a SoM one too lol

Though very curious to see what might change

The odds of Secrets of Magic getting a reprint in its current state are low. Considering:

1. Several pages of lore regarding the old D&D schools of magic that are no longer valid.

2. Several of the options presented in the book have been reprinted in other books:
- Elementalist got reprinted in RoE
- Runelord is set to appear in Rival Academies
- Several spells got reprinted across Player Core and Player Core 2.

If they have to replace the reprinted/OGL content, we would be looking at a completely different book.

Then again, what do I know?

I don't know, but something tells me because so much of the Secrets of Magic material has already been incorporated into the Core books, is it possible the upcoming "Impossible" book might not contain just the two new classes we are playtesting, but also might contain remastered versions of the Magus and Summoner? I mean if a remaster of SoM is redundant, it would make more sense to incorporate them in the new book, especially since we have no idea what the book is about except possibly Impossible Lands, which themselves are excellent areas where Magus and Summoner might hail from

I had that thought too, since that book is already magically themed, incorporating the remastered magus and summoner would be a good place there

I remembered the Cultivator archetype
It needs occultism which you got anyway, gives some interesting (if sometimes situational) focus spells, can give you (with some stamina) 3 skill feats for the price of one, has self-healing and gives you a path to immortality

First off - don't let your friends talk you into anything you don't like

Secondly - I have not played a warpriest myself, but I can give some GM perspecitve insight and thoughts

now to the topic at hand

Warpriest certainly has some small problems juggling the actions between proper attacking, movement and casting spell
but then again, if you go for a cloistered cleric you have to juggle your healing and other spells
with a decent weapon and the attributes to back it up you have a new third action option

Attacks of opportunity are dangerous of course, but so are they for the magus - and in the end something that is really heavily dependent on the gm
it should be something you could Recall Knowledge about and if you feel like 3/4 of all enemies are using AoO you should possibly talk to your gm

restorative strike should be of good value if your party (and you) properly consider tactics - flanking is easy and should be done whenever there in an opportunity
(that being said, 2 action heal is for immediate healing the strongest option, it is a tactical tool, not the go-to as you probably guessed)

as for weapons who are (imo) decent for warpriest, come with a god and support the playstyle

-Bladed Scarf has a lot of traits for maneuvers and is supported by Ashava and Sivanah
-Bo Staff gives you parry as additional option and is Sun Wukongs chosen bludgeon
-Glaive is also given by the lady of the north star, but forceful is not a very good trait if you are not a full martial or action starved (talk with your gm, the Naginata would work as variant glaive maybe)
-The Guisarme is the favored Weapon of Saloc, a psychopomp usher (those usually work well for good campaigns too)
-With Deadly simplicity the longspear offered by Lubaiko becomes a bit more interesting, although she might not be compatible with every campaign
-The Ranseur is availible to followers of the sarkorian stag mother of the forests and stones
-while not very good damage wise, the wip is a decent support weapon with a number of useful traits

this is from an incomplete list as the relatively new divine mysteries adds some more options for Halberds, Longspear, whips, Meteor hammer and others I have surely not seen spontaneously

really depends on the weapon, but I would say most weapons that dont have moving parts are completely safe if you are unseen
-> remember kids, if your sword actuall goes 'shwing' when you draw it, its time to replace the scabbard

if you want to ambush someone crossbows should probably be pre-cranked and pulling a bow is usually rather silent too
(and the ammo can be silenced in the quiver with enough padding)

but good luck staying completely silent with an (unmodified) spiked chain

I would also say that if the weapon you draw is larger then your cover, you should rething if you can properly hide behind it and if it should be drawn already at that point
i.e. the above mentioned javelin, if you duck behind a crate and have it lengthswise ready, it can be stealthy

moving away from weapons (and items in general)
I agree that purely mental actions (the not magically enhanced kind at least) wont give you away

beyond that, it really does depend on the circumstances and judgements should be made by the gm with a measure of logical thinking and good faith towards the characters and the players ideas

You could take up the undead master archetype to get an 'animal companion' level undead you can order around for 1 action

if you like to dig deep for your bones you might pick up archeologist and learn a few things to deal with ruins, traps and dead societies

dandy is another fun archetype if you want to add a social layer to your character
gossip lore is a fun feat and we know most necromancers like to dress in style

if you are a bone or flesh necromancer you could consider exorcist
helping spirits and souls to move on while immediately recycling their bones

of course, werecreatures or undead archetypes are always working in some way

More weapons and maybe a section on how to design weapons (and how some of the more mind-boggling designs come together balance wise)

and lots and lots of archetypes

hopefully at least *one* that lets you specialize in an advanced weapon without it being cut to specifically that weapon

-Soothe and Fear are always decent choices

-If you move in close bane and malediction are things that help you and your allies

-command could easily be flavored to command the enemies skeleton :P

-invisibility to slip away between your thralls

-since the necromancer has some singing flavor sonata span might be oddly fitting (and so are many other sound based spells)

-rouse skeletons, thematically very fitting and with summon thralls being one action a movable sustainable aoe seems very handy

to name some examples - I also fully expect that book where the class comes in to deliver new and thematically fitting occult spells

halflings are short humans
gnomes are short half-fey elves

if you keep it in mind like that, theres plenty of difference already

Nothing to Shamira, would have been interesting

Do we have better by now? The first link does *work*
but how the boxes are all differently aligned triggers some minor OCD streak in me *hard*

A bit of a sideline interjection towards grapple again

If the player wants to do awesome martial arts and have grapples that can be really *really* powerful

The player might want to check out the third edition of Exalted

in itself you can grab the enemy, push them around, throw them around, savage them and bash them into stuff

and then there are martial arts and 'class' specific abilities that can be stacked of top

its a lot of rolling with a lot of dice, but (after pathfinder2e) one of my favourite systems (which of course has it's very own problems)

I really do like the new Kobolds, opens up the way for more possibilities to play them down the line (Tian Xia character guide doing a nice start with it)

The redesign... honestly, at first I hated it, but it grew on to my. By now I am in the camp that will defend the paizobolds without a second thought - and I actually think the new headshape is more dragon like and the old one by now reminds me more of a crocodile

Ignoring the fact that golarion has access to the elemental planes, a common misconception about historical gold is the size of the coins - they are usually rather small

Archer and Mauler both got a small but weighty rewording in their dedication

instead of proficiency with their respective weapons, they get familiarity

I don't have the book yet but iirc from the streams and youtube reviews the bravado trait gives you panache if you fail, but only till your next turn

you should cross-check the bravado trait, that is probably the key point you are missing here

Another take:

The non-humans *are* just humans with funny ears

imagine an elf, dwarf, gnome or the like growing up in absalom
they are sorrounded by humans (and others) and even among them many different cultures

they are used to interact with the human mindset, most people around are *some variant* of that anyway

it is not unlikely that that has a very stron influence on how a character acts and thinks

why should a dwarf that grows up in andoran act that much different from a human in andoran? if he is not in the influence sphere of constant racism he might act like everybody else, drink a pint with the other people in the local tavern, might complain they don't have dwarven ale (if he knows it) or even say 'I would really like to try some dwarven ale some day' (if he does not) and maybe he even shaves his beard off because he came to like the a clean trimmed look

but he might very well identify as andoran in the first place and not as dwarf, especially if his (now) hometown has only a very small dwarven population

at least once in a while, especially in places in the world where humans are the biggest part of the populace, it is perfectly fine for non-humans to still act like humans

I am fully expecting the daikyu to be remastered *cough* in the tian xia characters guide

I agree with an estoc being a nice addition and wonder if that would be a historically correct two-handed weapon or a fantasy 'big needle rapier'

I would also love to see more ancestral weapons for everyone
a while ago I tried to homebrew a set that was left uncompleted, but making the ancestral weaponry feat more worth taking would be nice and there is a lot of room there

also would like to see some of the rare traits that are unique to very few weapons to be spread out more (with blade is nice, but why has nobody, especially the magic minded elves, tried to replicate that?)

I would also like to see a free-hand weapon that is not just d4 *caugh*

other weapons I would love to see:
Slingshot, Jitte, Blunt/Bullet Crossbow, another d6 pistol with something else then bein subtle (or dwarvish), Bow Variants (Swift Bow, Recurve bow, ...), more attached weapons (tail blades, bow blades, forearm blades (I just realized the big overlap with more free hand))

Alternative suggestion for hero points

take a note out of the Mutants and Masterminds game book

ever player has to get some weaknesses, character flaws or the like, that can get them into trouble

you hand out a hero point if they get into trouble - or you can offer them at opportunities if you really dont like the outcome of a roll or need to cheat

'you critically hit! the bbeg goes down...a bit anticlimactic...here have this hero point and lets see what happens *wink* '

the players can decline the last if its an offer

Based on the thread by mellored and some answers there,
let's see if subclasses are a valid idea for the guardian

Based on the ideas there I propose 3+ subclasses
They should probably get a little boost to their main schtick and the other ones specials can be learned with a feat

Protagonist: The hero of his own story, loud and boastful - uses the taunt as his main ability (unique improvement: more range? dc penalty for already struck enemies?=

Stalwart: 'You Shall not pass!' Hampering strikes as their key feature to shut down enemy movement (unique improvement: ac/saves bonus when not moving?)

Bodyguard: getting in harms way to protect their charge - intercept strike is their game (unique improvement: extra reaction for intercepting? more reach?)

And I think a shield focused subclass would fit well too, maybe with something that passively increases a shields durability like the shield spirit from champion or the magus subclass

it is already allowed to put your banner onto a weapon or shield

I admit I was also kinda disappointed by the flickmace being a flail

I always imaginined it as a mace with a telescope mechanism that extends with the swing and then automatically retracts by internal spring mechanisms or something

Pretty much what Sanityfaerie said

the best thing you could do is coordination with your team - they are free to call down void damage upon you and whoever is so unlucky that they get grappled

void clerics with (directed) harm will be great allies

but generally there is little equipment, especially equipment that would require you to be undead

I guess this is more about the very few ancestries and heritages that don't have a specific feat to get custom lore + 2 skills
Which I think don't have that Option for a reason, so I am okay with the current state of things