ShadowFighter88's page

These art designs are awesome, but any chance of higher resolution versions? I can only read the design notes by leaning right forward and squinting.

So just going through it and noticed a hiccup with the map, specifically on A16. The room's description mentions some of the cages being marked to indicate their current occupants, but all of the cages on the map are blank.

EDIT: Should point out this is the PDF and I'm looking at both the map in the adventure PDF and the version in the maps PDF. Both have the cages unmarked.

Westworld hosts are a good example too, but they're so hard to kill and tough that it might set unreasonable expectations to players who then get disappointed that their android PC doesn't have a few extra hundred hit points... :-P

This might actually work well alongside the Alien androids and such. "Like Westworld's hosts but only about as tough as a normal human".

Perpdepog wrote:

You could also point out that Warforged are more like steampunk mechanical characters, while Androids are more like cyberpunk mechanical characters. One is very "big iron" while the other are obviously intended and capable of passing for living beings.

Eberron isn’t steampunk at all.

Agreed. There’s no pistons or the like in a warforged - my understanding was a livewood muscle system constructed over a metal skeleton (which is also why the idea of a warforged being able to disassemble themselves feels like a terrible idea - even if you can disconnect the muscle bundles safely, that’s gonna be hell to reconnect them all properly afterwards).

The primary inspiration for me for these when I was building them orignally ages ago are the androids from Alien and Aliens, but also from Ridley Scott's more recent android-themed things like Prometheus, Alien: Covenant, and Raised by Wolves.

Replicants form Blade Runner are pretty close as well. Because that's also Ridley Scott.

I've always envisioned them as being very organic in construction, but obviously artificial.

Thanks for that. Somehow I keep forgetting about the ones from Alien.

Anyone had a good way to describe them to keep people from automatically comparing them to warforged, at least as far as physical construction goes?

I've tried Human Cylons from Battlestar Galactica and the Replicants from Blade Runner but both strike me as being much more organic than Androids (particularly with some of the ancestry feats they got). I'm hesitant to compare them to Fallout 4's Synths because I keep thinking that they'll go straight to Nick Valentine. It's just that every time I explain the ancestry to them they keep thinking of them as being far more mechanical than they actually are and I'm trying to head this sort of miscommunication off ahead of time.

- Shields: Your shield doesn't add to your AC automatically; you have to spend an action to Raise a shield, and it only lasts 1 round.

I've seen people often conflate the Raise a Shield action (the one coriolis is referring to here) and the Shield Block reaction (which is a damage reduction effect that causes damage to your shield) and thinking that just raising a shield will risk damaging it. If you don't use the Shield Block reaction (which most classes don't have anyway) then your shield can only be damaged by an enemy specifically targeting it. Going by your last post in the thread, glss, I'd consider this more a "misunderstandings to look out for" thing since you said you knew the facts but not the implications.

With Heightening Spells you need to remember that disconnecting spell DCs from spell level means that your lower level save-dependent spells will still have use. Particularly with how the math's been set up, combined with the +/-10 crit system, so that a -1 penalty is still relevant no matter the target's level.

So that 1st level Fear spell is still going to be useful even when fighting a Cairn Linnorm (an 18th level creature) - if they fail their save, then that's -2 to all of the Linnorm's checks and DCs, including their AC, so you just gave the party Barbarian an extra 10% chance to land a crit, and an extra 10% chance for any more spells cast at the Linnorm to crit until the fear wears off. And even if the Linnorm succeeds on the save, well they still take a penalty, it's just smaller than the one from a failed save.

And if the last paragraph didn't make the implication clear I'll state the biggest mindset to form for PF2e here - "Teamwork is OP". More than ever; the party has to work together. If you have a choice between making another attack with a nasty Multiple Attack Penalty or doing something with a greater chance of success that inflicts some sort of penalty on the enemy, it's probably best to go for inflicting the penalty so that a teammate can get a good hit in or use the opening to inflict a nastier and/or longer-lasting debuff for the others to capitalise on.

Hang on; this thing has Spell Resistance north of 40? Bloody hell.

With no other ideas coming to him and frustrated at this creature's ability to negate their spells, Theo took out the diamond they'd salvaged earlier and raised it high, extending his power through it to grasp hold of reality itself and, in particular, the strands of it around the creature they faced.

"I wish your defences against our magic would fail and falter."

Casting Wish, probably a bad idea to reach like this but I'm stumped otherwise. The irony is that Wish itself is vulnerable to Spell Resistance which, for something of this calibre, feels kinda weird to me.

Caster level check to breach spell resistance: 1d20 + 24 ⇒ (20) + 24 = 44
O.O Okay; if that doesn't get through his spell resistance then I'm gonna feel useless. :P

Angel Hunter D wrote:

Do they need to be 6 shots? I could see smaller cylinders if it's a balance issue.

No, I think gunslingers would get most of the benefit if they could get two shots per reload, anything more would just be gravy. It would go a long way towards fixing action economy, guaranteeing two attacks per round. The weird thing about single shot weapons is it puts you at this awkward place where you're doing 1.5 shots per round.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I could see something like a 4-barrel pepperbox where you can spend 1 action to reload one barrel, or 3 actions to fully reload. The drawback to these, naturally, would be bulk.

I don't think we should have any system where we reward you to spend your entire turn reloading. It's not fun! How would that interact with actions like running reload? I think it should be 1 action per barrel, but gunslingers inherently can reload all barrels with a single action. That might make a 4-barrel pepperbox a bit too strong, but I'd be pretty happy with just two barrels.

I can get behind all of this. I haven't tried the playtest guns yet but I can easily see a double-barrelled pistol or musket being a martial weapon (something that's basically two guns strapped together shouldn't be complex enough to justify a jump in proficiency tier) and having reloading multi-barrelled weapons just be "one action per barrel" which has the added benefit of being similar to how 1e did reloading such weapons (whatever action it took to reload a gun in 1e, that would be enough to load one barrel of a multi-barrel weapon).

As for a discussion on the whole, I think we should toss the idea of a revolver out of the window entirely. I know there's that one piece of art showing some form of Champion (which book and the details of who the art was of escape me at the moment) with a revolver, but given that the only Golarion canon revolvers in all of 1e were the ones in Reign of Winter part 5 (and that would only be if the PCs brought them back to Golarion with them), I think we should focus on pre-revolver firearms for our expectations here. So if you can't picture it being in Pirates of the Caribbean or Sea of Thieves, I would assume it'd be an Alkenstar prototype at best (the sort of rare thing you could build a whole adventure around with the weapon serving as the MacGuffin everyone's after).

Xel was practically out of Valeria's backpack before she'd crossed the threshold. "Oh thank whatever gods happen to looking in our direction right now; heat!" the bird remarked as he landed next to the fire and warmed himself. "Blessed warmth, glorious thermal energy!"

"I, um, apologise for my familiar. I must've messed something up when I first forged the bond," Valeria explained, while resisting the urge to do a more dignified version of the exact same thing and ignoring the dirty look her remark had drawn from the avian. "What do you mean by a 'difficult time'? Has something happened?"

Valeria had kept close to Ameiko through all this - partly just desperate for warmth but then becoming protective as Kasha made her announcement. One hand under her cloak reaching for her spell component pouch as she glared daggers at Qochi.

I'm still here, sorry; writer's block.

Yeah, those feats do feel kinda pointless, especially since you can adjust the eidolon's size upward with Evolution Surge. Makes the feats feel kinda redundant unless you're relying on some of the other aspects of Evolution Surge.

I feel like those feats are gonna be campaign-specific ones like all the ones related to mounted characters, only moreso - someone with the Cavalier archetype or a Champion with the Steed Ally can still be a decent combatant when leaving their mount behind, but the Summoner would be reliant on repeatedly manifesting and de-manifesting their eidolon based on the terrain while hoping that all the encounters happen in rooms large enough for them to fit into.

KrispyXIV wrote:

Eidolons can make ranged attacks via cantrips at level 2, if i recall.

I feel like "Eidolon hovers out of range shooting telekinetic projectiles at you" is fixed by "everyone can tell that the eidolon is connected to the summoner" and "harassing the summoner is a good way to get the summoner to stop that."

Since if your Eidolon casts "Electric Arc" that leaves the Summoner with at most one action.

Probably not even one if they didn't use Act Together - remember that you have to spend one action to Fly each round (even if you're flying zero feet, to represent hovering) to remain airborne.

You move through the air up to your fly Speed. Moving upward (straight up or diagonally) uses the rules for moving through difficult terrain. You can move straight down 10 feet for every 5 feet of movement you spend. If you Fly to the ground, you don’t take falling damage. You can use an action to Fly 0 feet to hover in place. If you’re airborne at the end of your turn and didn’t use a Fly action this round, you fall.

As for Evolution Surge - with how the game seems to want you to take ten minute breaks after most encounters to do stuff like refocus, heal, search the room, etc, I have to agree with Krispy and Cabbage here. Focus spells are not your "oh crap" button; they're basically per-encounter abilities.

A fight rarely lasts more than a minute so one casting of Evolution Surge will have you done for the whole fight. Then afterwards you can refocus to get that focus point back while the Cleric is patching everyone up with the Medicine skill (and relevant skill feats), the Rogue and Ranger search the room, the Champion is also refocusing to regain the focus point he spent on Lay on Hands earlier, etc. You're taking those ten minute breaks frequently anyway and can do other stuff while refocusing so there's no reason not to use at least one focus point an encounter unless the story has you on a time crunch.

Reflex Save DC23 vs fire: 1d20 + 14 ⇒ (3) + 14 = 17

Know Arcane: 1d20 + 22 ⇒ (9) + 22 = 31

"Well, now I wish I'd learnt some of those classic transmutation spells for working with stone and rock. If it can be blocked by spell resistance, those fossil golems are immune to it and anything they damage can end up being fossilised and I did not realise how much I missed my lungs earlier until now that I have them back."

Reaching deep, Theo called up his blood more than ever. Once more he was momentarily engulfed in fire, the flames obscuring the view of his transformation. But this time it was even larger still, the flames breaking away to reveal the largest dragon form he'd ever attained, golden scales glistening more than ever. The dispersing flame quickly coalescing into a blast of fire to test the waters against the golems.

Casting Form of the Dragon III, quickened fireball (DC21 Reflex for half)

Fireball Damage: 10d6 + 10 ⇒ (5, 2, 2, 6, 4, 3, 2, 2, 4, 1) + 10 = 41

It's late at night here so I'll do up the full bonuses from FotD 3 in the morning.

-Poison- wrote:

KrispyXIV wrote:

They clearly suffer the worst result of the action.

If its a Failure, they are tripped. If its a critical failure, they are tripped and suffer 1d6 damage.

This isn't hard.

Hold on here, so let me get this straight.

You believe, that if i get a failure on tripping the Summoner (meaning nothing happens to the Summoner)

But then if i attempt to trip the Eidolon, a separate creature not occupying the same space, and get a success (meaning the Eidolon falls and is prone).

That the Summoner is now also fallen and prone?

Absolutely. When subject to the same effect, both suffer the worse result. Its the same as if you hit them with a spell that did this.

Isn't that bit referring to when both summoner and eidolon are effected by the same effect, as in "at the same time"? A trip action is two separate instances, it would have to be an AoE trip effect to cover that bit, or at least I think that's the intent going by the example they use in that part of the document.

EDIT: Flurry of Manoeuvres would be two separate trip actions, even if they're done as part of the one activity. And would only come close to triggering this clause if one trip was made on the eidolon and the other on the summoner.

I'm sure some of this is because the playtest only just came out today and there's lingering habits from the 1e Magus but I have to wonder - how much is the focus on old magus standbys like Shocking Grasp and Vampiric Touch hampering the discussions?

I may be putting too much stock in this, but I keep seeing touch spells and those two in particular being mentioned very frequently. But Striking Spell isn't restricted to touch spells (they just need to be single-target ones) and the class has full access to the Arcane spell list now, so now I'm wondering if old habits or the like aren't blinding people to new possibilities.

Agonising Despair, for instance - that targets just a single creature and is on the Arcane list, therefore is perfectly valid to be delivered via Striking Spell. Even if the target succeeds on its save, it'll still be frightened 1 and take some extra mental damage.

Slow could be delivered with it as well. Along with Blindness, Curse of Lost Time, Earthbind (though I think you'd need the Shooting Star Synthesis to use that one with Striking Spell unless you have a way of getting airborne), Paralyse, and that's just with a quick skim of the 3rd level spells.

Again; I may be over-estimating how much effect this would have on the discussion, but I want to at least highlight this possibility rather that only looking at the old standard spells from last edition.

Valeria clamped down on the urge to ask about their supplies of coffee. During her shopping trip the previous day she'd managed to find Sandru and make sure there was enough and had even seen the supply list that confirmed it. She blamed the urge on the fact she was still waking up.

Xel, however, had no reservations about speaking from his perch on Valeria's shoulder. "And what am I supposed to do for survival on this trip? Spend the whole time hunkered up in spare blankets with a hot rock and be bored stiff for weeks on end?"

"Ignore him," Val said, "I'll find him something to do."

"And what, praytell, would that be? Need I remind you that most of the... literature you brought with you is not exactly gripping to avian imaginations."

"Well you've got more altruistic ideas than me. And some odd ones about the nobility - I haven't had language or dance lessons since I was six. To be fair; the latter case was because I kept trodding on Mala Winthrop's feet until she punched me in the face so one could say I was just exempt from them for medical reasons."

"Sounds like you've got a solid idea at least. Might even be able to put you in touch with some of the architects we've used for designing a couple of our wineries. Not sure about builders; we haven't built anything as far from Magnimar as Roderick's Cove so not sure how far they're willing to travel. Still; worry about that when we don't have to worry about time itself getting snapped in two."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

As he got ready for bed, Theo noticed a painting over the fireplace in his bedroom. It was of a young tiefling woman, dark haired and athletically built, reclining on a sofa wearing nothing but an artfully-draped sheet and a smile. "Don't remember adding you to the mansion," Theo muttered to himself, looking over the painting, "so why do you look so familiar?"

If it's not clear, the painting's mean to be Alika, Theo's girlfriend and the daughter of one of the Sihedron Heroes. And since the Heroes seem to have been steadily removed from time...

Oh damn, be sure to spoil that dog like crazy.

Valeria's still for a moment at the sight of more wealth than she'd ever conceived of lying in front of her. If anyone looked at her, her eyes would've been wide as saucers and the slit-pupils now filling the entire iris. Not unlike a cat that's just set its sights on prey.

There we go. Sorry; couldn't resist the urge to end it with a sequel hook. :P

About a month after the coronation, Maria's father finally returned to Oppara. It turns out he'd been on his way back when word reached him of the civil war and so he decided to hunker down in Restov until things had finally settled.

It was about then that Desna apparently decided he'd had enough good luck in his life and set about "balancing the scales" - letters he sent to Maria ended up getting lost, redirected or, in one notable instance, snatched out of his hand by a hawk of all things. Of the three people he found able to cast sending spells, two were vastly over-priced and the third was actually terrible at targeting the spell based off a verbal description. Ended up going to a blonde tiefling girl in Cheliax named Mary who was none too pleased at her massage being interrupted by some creepy-sounding old Restovite.

He was very happy to meet Safina, though wasn't too surprised that their first meeting was essentially just "meeting and flirting in a coffee shop". He was quite surprised to hear the stories the two had for their part in the war, particularly the plane-hopping, and was understanding about details that the new Empress had asked them not to share.

There was some trepidation at the news the couple would be moving to Zimar, at least until they mentioned the plan of seeing whether Darius could help set up a teleportation circle between the two residences.

Over time, the Zimar branch of Greyson Investigative Services flourished. Given it had been Pythareus' power base during the war, there were more than a few people who were reluctant to seek the aid of someone who'd helped depose the former military commander. But Maria soon got the local law enforcement to let her help on the occasional case, which slowly grew into more work as the grudges of the war fell away.

After about a year, a letter arrived from Andoran, requesting her presence in Almas to help deal with a vigilante that had been working in the city. Ordinarily Maria would have ignored it, except for the identity the vigilante had taken.

The Tigress. An identity Maria had used once during the war, but that she had chosen because of the original Tigress who'd been active in Oppara over twenty years ago. And Maria was one of only three people in Taldor who knew the original Tigress' true identity.

Quinta Greyson. Maria's mother.

Maria, Safina, and a handful of close associates she'd made in the investigative business set off for Almas only a few days later, to see just who was using the identity of the Tigress.

But that is a tale for another day...

"Thanks Kasha," Valeria said as she felt her wounds knit closed.

It was hard to tell, thanks to her natural pale skin, but one could almost swear that Friday's suggestion left the tiefling a shade or two paler. "I'm just gonna say right now; I am not enchanting that thing for you down the road."

Seeing the oni finally go down, Valeria unleashed one last blast of fire to finish her off.

Flame Arc: 3d6 + 1 ⇒ (1, 6, 1) + 1 = 9

Frustrated at how her spells kept failing to have an effect, Valeria just went for something a bit more direct. Namely setting the bastard on fire with a snap of her fingers.

Spontaneous Immolation, DC17 Fort for half damage and to not catch fire: 3d6 ⇒ (1, 1, 1) = 3

Oh for the love of-

"I'll take the scroll fragment to a friend of mine in town - if he can't make sense of it then his master in Oppara should be able to manage it."

Later
Parchment in hand, Maria made her way down to Stachys' tavern, where Tash had set himself up (the rent being covered by providing various arcane aid to the business). Had even organised an extension to part of the building so he had a larger workspace. The room was as cluttered as ever, though Maria was sure that there was some method to the madness. It was also clear he'd taken some of Darius' more "mechanical aid" approach to magical enhancements - various gadgets and tools lay about meant to focus arcane energies into particular forms.

The arcanist himself was pouring over one such device, his sleeves rolled up as he applied oil carefully to the joints of an armature.

"Tash? You free for the moment? How's your divination?" she asked.

"Not in my repertoire at the moment," he replied, magically cleaning his hands as he made his way over to her, leaning on the table, "but give me ten minutes or so and it will be, what's the go?"

"Piece of a used scroll, trying to work out what it was used to cast. Ideally who used it, but I'm trying to be realistic in my expectations."

"Well I'll try - probably better off takin' this to Darius, though. I think he sent me some teleport scrolls recently, they're around here... somewhere."

"I thought you knew where everything was in here?"

"I do!" Tash sounded almost offended. "They only arrived the other day, haven't had a chance to file 'em away properly yet, or even see what the scrolls are. Some of us have a day job, after all."

"Does yours involve periodical threats to your life and/or metaphysical existence?"

He started to reply but paused for a moment. "Yeah, alright, fair enough. Stick it in one of the clamps on that thing over there, I need to grab me spellbook and take time preppin' stuff so you may as well pop out and have a drink."

"It's not even noon," the detective pointed out as she took the scrap of parchment over to the assortment of machines.

"Wouldn't know it from the mornin' crowd round here, I can tell you. No no; the next machine along, the one with the magnifyin' glass."

Since he hasn't turned up in a while, I'm referring to the guy from this post of mine from last September.

"First case back home in a while and it has to be Eutropia... couldn't have just been a good art heist or something, could it? A bit of a palette cleanser before tackling something this big."

Maria was muttering more to herself than anyone in particular as she took in the room, starting with examining the site of the actual murder, trying to determine how Eutropia was sitting at that moment and where the attacker was standing.

Profession PI: 1d20 + 19 ⇒ (9) + 19 = 28

Theo tried to remain impassive at Sorshen's proclamation about what she intended, but inside was another story entirely.

At dinner, when Sorshen requested a story, Theo spoke up.

"Tell me; have you ever been at the site of a disaster? I don't mean caused it or avoided it, but walked through the streets that just suffered such a tragedy?

"I'm sure you heard about what happened in Magnimar when Xin's city rose from the water, but did you see the devastation yourself? I was a ways inland at the time, visiting a friend, when the tsunami was first spotted and the alarm started sounding. Although by then, the Sihedron Heroes had used it to create a barrier over the city. It stopped most of the wave but the coastal districts were just outside of the barrier. I thought my magic might've been able to help so my friend and I rushed to help.

"It wasn't a pretty sight - buildings flattened by the water, people crushed by the buildings or the sheer force of the wave. There were even some corpses that confused me until I realise they'd been picked up and slammed against the very barrier meant to protect the city. There were survivors, of course, and we quickly worked to help get people free or just to safety - hauling wreckage out of the way or just directing the ones who were in shock, doing some basic first aid where we could. But the wave was just the start of it.

"I'm sure you more than anyone know the sort of clockwork machines Xin had filled his city with. Well the first we knew of them was some massive mechanical serpent bashing its way through the wall of a half-collapsed tenement block and biting the woman we were helping in two. My magic bounced off its hide, my spear shattered the same way, my friend's staff likewise just got lodged in some exposed gears and ground to sawdust.

"We'd have been killed if the Sihedron Heroes hadn't shown up. They held off the monsters while my friend and I - and other bystanders - made sure the civilians got to safety. That part of town is still recovering to this day, bodies are still occasionally found in the more abandoned areas or a clockwork monster the Heroes missed or only thought they killed starts back up again. Not to mention so many people dying at once... well, not all of them moved on to the Boneyard if you catch my drift.

"That was when I started researching Thassilon, so that if ever something from that time posed a danger to people, I might know how to deal with it."

Intimidate DC30: 1d20 + 20 ⇒ (7) + 20 = 27

Oh come on!

Investigator: 15

HP +6
BAB +1
Fort +1

Trap Sense: +5
Investigator Talent: Perceptive Tracking (can find and follow tracks with Perception instead of Survival)

Feat: Hammer the Gap (bonus damage on additional attacks in a round)

Castings:
+1 3rd, +1 5th

New Formula:
Overland Flight

Skills:
Too Damn Many. :P

"Sorry;" Valeria said as she made her way into the room, "there was a wall in my way so the haste was all I cou- holy hell!"

It's pretty obvious that she never got a clear look at the guy and, by extension, has never seen a werebear before. She does recognise the stab wounds though. "Okay, Friday; sometimes I forget how terrifying you are with that spear."

Haha! I finally made a concentration check!

As the trial concludes, Xan braces herself for delivering the sentence.

"Alright there's a few parts to this so you lot watching need to hold off your reaction until I've explained in full, don't want to have to go talking over you all.

"Firstly; you're exiled from our lands - breaking this exile will be punished by an immediate execution, this is the only trial you're getting here. Second; we will be circulating your faces, description, modus operandi and what we've determined of your capabilities to neighbouring townships and cities - their law enforcement will be watching for you which will make things pretty difficult for you in the future. Be glad I'm in a good mood for that one - I was seriously considering facial brands as well so you don't pull this s+$* on anyone else.

"Finally; the only goods you will be taking with you on your way out of our lands will be the clothes on your back and maybe enough supplies to see you to Restov. No money, no weapons or armour, nothing else. And, yes, that means no religious iconography - I know enough about divine spellcasting that you need a symbol for at least some of the spells. The guards who will escort you out of our lands will also have standing orders that even a hint of spellcasting from you - even if it is just a simple healing spell - will be treated as an attempt to break your exile and will respond... accordingly." She emphasised the final word by placing her hand on the hilt of her own sword.

"You will each have three guards escorting you and you will be treated as prisoners until you have left our lands and, as I said, will treat anything suspicious from you as attempts to escape. So to put it simply; either you wind up penniless with a chance to turn your lives around in Restov, or dead. Up to you."

She turned to Colwyn as she finished. "Anything you'd like to add or change to that, dear Baron?"

"Well... that could've gone worse. You don't want to know what it does after it paralyses someone, trust me."

As she spoke, she walked over to check out the object that fell from one of its legs.

Happy holidays, everyone.

On another note; I think I found Zileska's calling if she were a Starfinder PC (it's homebrew but still).

"Those 'goblin brain cookies' certainly gave Father Zantus an interesting few days before word got around that it wasn't an infection."

Shalelu wrinkles her nose and pokes at one of the cots. "These look flimsy."

"We'll warn Kelda about that," she said, giving a knowing smirk to Ameiko.

"I'm in agreement--eating here could be more hazardous to Ameiko's health than a ninja's blade."

Valeria paused in surprise for a moment and stared at the elf for a second, wondering if she'd heard properly.

On another matter - wrote up the backstory for a Sihedron Hero. Viorec Saldana, Swashbuckler, Sihedron Hero, and the father of Theo's girlfriend.

I super want it, but Maria did claim the first Con boosting item we found when she got eaten by a catfish, and I am always willing to defer

Also, Maria, your statbar still says you're level 6

I'll get around to fixing that now. Keep forgetting to do it after levelling a character up on their Google sheet (which reminds me; still need to fill out that field on Theodric's profile in our Return of the Runelords campaign).

And, in hindsight, I think Sara should take the belt. Maria's probably better off as a flanker or just not being the first into melee in general. Plus she's probably gonna need the extra CON if she's wearing red in front of a pair of divs. :P

EDIT: I also need to start making better use of Maria's extracts. So many buffs on here. Although using them all rapidly would remind me of a bit from this Monster Hunter World animation (namely the bit from about 6:52).

"Gorum? If I went there asking for a scroll of secret chest they'd probably think it's result was only good for an impromptu bludgeon. Or fill it with lead bars and find some way to make it materialise in the air to drop it on someone."

Assuming they weren't thinking of the other kind of chest, she thought to herself; remembering the last time she spoke to a devotee of Gorum.

Don't say that to Valeria - she'd probably launch into a lecture.

Oh; forgot to mention this, but we're not selling the coffee. Maria's calling dibs on that s#*&.

EDIT: And Maria would rather not have an actual role in the wedding. She'd attend, obviously, but would rather not have the hassle of helping organise it.

Farlanghn wrote:

Are we going to see Tieflings in this book? I would love to see some space tieflings added to the Starfinder universe.

That would be cool...

You... you bloody tease!

Well Valeria (and, by the sounds of it, Ameiko) was going to go visit Snaevald and try to find out where Ravenscraeg is and anything else he might know about the place. Maybe also see if there's a mage or something in town who has spells she can learn (or at least scrolls she can put into her book later on). Then buying gear because Valeria's got a few thousand gold burning a hole in her pocket. And hopefully most of that is in platinum or that's just one more source of potential back problems. :P

It's a little earlier than I was intending to bring up some of Valeria's concerns about her heritage and its influence on her personality, but leaving herself and Ameiko open to the ninja attack was too good an opportunity for it to pass up.

Also, I think all the moments of drama and emotional highs and lows in Critical Role is helping me with this stuff (the last part of episode 44 in Campaign 1 and the fallout from that event being the more prominent example - and the biggest that I've seen since I started watching since I'm only a few episodes on from there).

It is easier when you go in with a concept in mind. Like going into the Fighter example in the OP - if I went into that knowing I wanted to make a medium-armoured swashbuckler kind of character (and I've no idea how well that concept works with the class' armour-related feats, I can't recall at the moment); then I'd already know that I want to use Dex as my key ability score, that I'd want an agile weapon and I'd skim-read the feats to decide whether to go single-handed, sword-and-buckler, or sword-and-dagger. Cuts out most of the flipping back-and-forth before I've even started.

(I say "sword" there, but obviously I mean a rapier - unless there's something more akin to the swords you see HEMA people using with a buckler and I just missed it)

As the ninja escape, Valeria's face was a mask of raw fury, an expression that shows her fangs quite prominently and making some of the stories about tieflings seem much more believable.

"Forget scouting the fortress," Valeria growled, "we're going after them tomorrow!"

She turns to the others, a distant corner of her mind thankful that she'd been able to tie the sash on her robe before the ninja had entered.

"Start buying supplies in the morning, anything and everything we might need, we leave for Ravenscraeg in the afternoon. Now all of you; get out so Ameiko can stop hiding under the bed. And take that dead ninja with you."

During the party
"You sure you don't wanna join in?" Kara said from the library desk, an array of various documents and reports spread out in-front of the amazonian half-orc. "Shindig like that's not my thing anyway, but ya look like ya could do with some cheerin' up."

"What I could do with," Maria said as she walked back to the table, "is one less reminder that I was almost eaten by an oversized fish. And I'm a little too old to go getting revenge-by-proxy with those catfish pinyatas so unless I wanted to get involved in whatever salacious game Zileska has put together there's really little down there for me to enjoy."

"Sure that fish didn't leave a stick up yer ass in the process?" She held her hands up defensively at Maria's glare. "Hey, sorry! I'm kiddin'. That really rattled ya, didn't it?"

Maria nodded. "My first near-death experience. Not one I care to repeat." She shook her head, letting her blonde tresses fly loose. "Anyway, it'll pass eventually. Best thing for me to do tonight is to distract myself with all of this."

"Identifyin' the Night Swan. Heh, ya really think we can do somethin' half of Meratt ain't managed?"

"Sometimes, all it takes is a fresh set of eyes. And, at the moment, that means finding those eyes first. What we have here in Stachys is a start, but we need to reach further afield. She seems to have a notable presence in Lotheedar so that should be our next step."

"Meanin' me and Sandra's next step, right?" Kara remarked with a lopsided grin.

"The whole reason you two approached me was because you knew there would be times I couldn't act directly. This is one of those times."

"Meanin' you don't want Burke to know about our little hunt, do you?"

Maria hesitated. She'd been keeping these concerns to herself, but Kara was far more perceptive than anyone ever gave her credit for.

"No, I don't. She's agreeing with the Swan's rhetoric. I want to believe the best of her, really... but I have to account for the worst-case scenario as well. What the Swan wants... it can only end in disaster even if she succeeds. Say she pulls it off; say she... drowns Taldor in blue blood. Even if the neighbouring nations don't label her as one of the single greatest mass-murderers in recent history, they'll be right there to invade and seize territory while our nation's in shambles. And if they don't, then Taldor will become a massive collection of independent city-states and anyone trying to organise those states for fair use of resources and the protection of the common folk from monsters and bandits will, in just a couple of human generations, end up right back to the same system we have today and her whole crusade will have been for nought."

"Whatever the problems a nation may have; genocide of an entire societal class should never be the solution."

Arrange Secret Meeting, Bluff, Spending Inspiration, DC 21: 1d20 + 1d6 + 10 ⇒ (13) + (3) + 10 = 26
EDIT: Re-reading that bit of the Persona rules made me realise that Inspiration isn't valid for these checks. Just as well I rolled high enough to not need the Inspiration, but still.

EDIT2: Oh, and sorry for bringing the mood down a bit after all of that, but I figure Maria would still be uncomfortable around stuff reminding her of almost getting eaten.

Can we get an online resource?

Haven't had a good look at it yet, but found this linked in another thread.

EDIT: Seems to still be under construction (the spells/powers section at least seems to be missing a lot still) and powers are still mixed in with spells, but subsequent hyperlinks in the class pages and being able to have the class open in one tab/window and the spell section in another should be a big help.

Jason Bulmahn wrote:

...Later on in this process we are going to be releasing a swarm of surveys that are not directly tied to the playtest. While many of those will be about specific game systems and engines, there will be one about our layout and information design. This too is important to us, even though I do not suspect we will get too many answers on it, as survey about user design interface is probably not too interesting to most, but that wont stop us from trying.

Just thought I would toss that out there. I hate to see enthusiasts so distraught that they cannot even bring themselves to play. Rest assured that we will be looking into that once we have things rolling here.

That’s awesome to hear; for all I’ve enjoyed it, layout is an area that I’ve found impeding my learning curve. It could however be due to years of experience and just bad habits I’ve picked up from design tropes in common with other RPGs over the years.

Layout is annoying at times. For one; I'd like to see class powers (like the ones from Sorcerer bloodlines, Paladin Champion Powers, etc) have their own separate spell lists at the beginning of the spells section.

Keep the full descriptions where they are in with the other spells, I have no issue with that, but put a list of all their names as like a short spell list in after the arcane/divine/primal/occult ones. That way, you have a reference to work with rather than having to find the name in the class' section (where the name could be buried in a feat description or the like) and makes it a lot quicker to flick through the descriptions to find the abilities.

I'll get an IC post up when I get home, but I mentioned in my last post that Valeria purposefully left the lock on the door open in case they needed to make a quick getaway - the chair (which she's now knocked away) was a replacement for the lock, she figured both would be overkill.

I had that damn song stuck in my head for over a week after it was shown at TennoCon. I’ve always said that the music team for Warframe were brilliant, this was them doing too good a job.