Silver2195's page

This could be maybe solved with a general class archetype, but I don't like that every dedicated skill user (mainly rogue and investigator, tome thaumaturge, inventor and commander to a lesser degree) is a martial. I would really enjoy playing a full caster who trades some casting power for being an actual skill monkey.

There are Intelligence-based casters, at least.

I was about to propose a Minky Momo-style profession-swapping magical girl as a concept for a skillmonkey/caster, but I guess that's what the Imperial Bloodline Sorcerer is already.

And you speak about powers that make for solid workaround, but what powers? You don't have spells, you can't Charm your way through the tough social encounter and other things like that. You bring Alchemical Items to help, sure, but that has a cost, a cost that most parties don't have to pay.

Kineticist is very bad for out of combat stuff and that's important and should be accounted in the tier list.

They're bad at social stuff, but not bad at all out-of-combat stuff. They have a lot of tools that can substitute for skills like Athletics, Acrobatics, Survival, or Thievery. Base Kinesis, Extended Kinesis, Stepping Stones, Igneogenesis, Flash Forge, Clear as Air, Cyclonic Ascent...

In the social department, there's not much beyond using your impulses to do people favors...although there is the 14th-level version of Whisper on the Wind, which I think breaks the plots of some APs.

Well, I'm showing my biases here, but... kineticist. First, it's enormously flexible as a class. You can build something that looks mostly like a tank (Earth/Metal or Earth/Wood). You can build a decent damage-dealer (Fire primary). You can build a pretty solid healer. Even better, there are a lot of combo maneuvers that do great with a kineticist on both sides - the "hazardous terrain plus push" technique in particular.

Now, kineticist healing doesn't stack well (the cooldowns are per power on target, which means that multiple kineticists with the same healing impulse start getting real redundant, real fast), and they really don't like giving up their own feats, which is going to mean that the party is a lot more solid if it can FA for other healing options, but even so it's not *bad* at healing.

...though, of course, if you're playing PFS this is a terrible idea. In general in an all-kineticist party, you're going to want to sidestep skills in a lot of cases by using utility impulses. In PFS, the straight-up "can you roll skill X and hit DC Y" is suddenly a lot more important, and your ability to think up creative new ways to apply your impulses instead really isn't.

Even outside of PFS, there's the problem that impulses are much better at dealing with physical problems than social or investigative ones. Though there are some fun corner cases like bribing NPCs with an infinite number of trees.

GnollMage wrote:

I crave some kind of actual, proper Theurge class that's officially supported (no, I do not meant multi-class dedications, nor do I mean gestalting).

Unfortunately, though, pretty sure I'd get skewered alive and have my hopes dashed and deconstructed within seconds for even suggesting it. XD

Alternatively, some kind of prepared Arcane (or Occult) caster that can access its entire list the way a Cleric or Druid can access theirs. Which I'm.. not exactly convinced would "break" anything.

Not skewered, just questioned. What unique mechanics did the theurge have that wizard with cleric dedication can't scratch?

I think a full-list occult caster would be fine, so long as they kept its other class features to a minimum. A full-list arcane caster is more questionable.

As for the "theurge," I assume what GnollMage wants is a class that's exactly half arcane caster and half divine caster, instead of one dabbling in the other.

In general, I find characters with few but versatile supernatural powers more interesting than ones with numerous but narrow ones, if that makes sense. I never found D&D-style Wizards particularly interesting, for example.

That's why the Kineticist is probably my favorite existing PF2 class. It's also why I'd like to see PF2 versions of the Mesmerist and Shifter. Classes specifically focused on things like necromancy or manipulating space could also be interesting. The difficulty would be balancing them against standard casters.

More non-arcane bounded casters (especially ones more like Rogues and less like Fighters) could also be interesting, in part for similar reasons - the non-arcane lists have more specific themes. I guess that might be the PF2 interpretation of the Mesmerist - an occult bounded caster with a somewhat Rogue-like chassis. (The Inquisitor might be the divine counterpart to that, but it looks like we're already going to be getting something similar to that as a Rogue class archetype.)

In general, though, there are surprisingly few "missing" concepts left, especially post-Battlecry. The only PF1 classes without a PF2 counterpart (via class, subclass, or archetype) will be the Mesmerist, Shifter, Skald, and Medium. (The Animist has some similarities to the Medium but also some important differences.) There's also the Samurai, but that feels less necessary - maybe it should be an archetype, or maybe not even that, just a few class/skill feats for things like iajutsu.

The obvious justification for Shifters is precisely the "borrowed from fiction" thing. People who turn into animals are a common fictional trope, and most of them are not generalized "nature wizards."

Yeah, what people want (at least what I want) from the Shifter is a class that shapeshifts without all the Druid baggage. No edicts/anathema, no spell slots, just someone who is very good at turning into animals.

The basic idea of the Skald is that it's a combination of the Bard and the Barbarian. This differs from other PF1 "hybrid classes" (with the exception of the Bloodrager, of course) because it's not something you can do with PF2 multiclass archetypes; the Barbarian's Rage ability makes it very difficult to do effectively. The Warrior Muse Bard is not the Skald; it doesn't really have anything to do with the Barbarian.

I'll take Popcorn, then.

I’m interested!

Edit: I'm fine with either Bottlespeaker or Fluff Fang.

Imagine if Tolkien had suddenly decided, 'Oh, I believe orcs are depicted as too malevolent in my book. It's clearly discriminatory and detrimental to readers' mental well-being. I'll revise this aspect. Henceforth, orcs in Middle-earth are a proud warrior race who vehemently oppose slavery and rape.' If he had really done that, I highly doubt his legendarium would have become as famous and masterful as it is.

I mean...Tolkien didn't put it in those terms, but in his letters he actually did have some second thoughts about orcs seemingly being inherently evil, pointing out that it seemed inconsistent with them otherwise seeming to be free-willed, intelligent beings.

And sexual violence wasn't a topic Tolkien was ever very interested in exploring.

Are they "redeemed undead" or undead who were never evil in the first place? Since the Crimson Reclaimers do missions deep in the Gravelands, I assumed that a bunch of the Crimson Reclaimers were, e.g., intelligent skeletons who could pretend to be mindless skeletons while behind enemy lines.

This is the first PbP I’ve been able to get into; I’m pretty excited about it. Thank you!

Gortle wrote:

darkvision ... is an important dimension of some stories but for many groups and most adventures it just gets lost in this game.

In fairness, there are LOTS of things that are important dimensions of stories that don't work well in gaming.

My favourite example is the ability to speak lots of languages. This can be pretty much the central contribution of a character in a story. But after a few minutes of linguistic fun language problems are generally just boring as all XXXX in a role playing game.

But there are many others.

I actually can't think of many stories where that's the case. It's much more common for fiction to handwave away language barriers.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

One thing I don't like:

The Changeling and Nephilim heritages are still dead choices for ancestries that already have darkvision built in (like Dwarves,Goblins, and Orcs). Since there's the clause to upgrade low-light vision to darkvision, and fully 3/8 of the ancestries in Player Core 1 have Darkvision, you'd think they'd have a clause for "what happens if you take Changeling as a Versatile Heritage on an Ancestry that has Darkvision already."

Do you not take the Heritage for its feats ?

I do not remember players taking this kind of Versatile Heritage just to boost their PC's vision from Low-light to Darkvision.

Sure, but how this works is if you want to play a Changeling and take Changeling feats it works out that if you pick an ancestry other than Dwarf, Goblin, or Orc you get something from your Changeling Heritage that you wouldn't if you picked Dwarf, Goblin, or Orc. So there's an opportunity cost (you only get one heritage) about making your pitborn or angelkin PCs a less-subterranean ancestry.

You can see how they accommodated for some ancestries already having low-light vision, with the clause " you gain darkvision if your ancestry already has lowlight vision." So there's no reason they couldn't have another clause for "what you get if you already have darkvision". They just didn't do that.

The game is generally good about refunding you if you gain a redundant feature through a character choice, so places where this doesn't happen stand out.

I understand, but I do not see what they could give that would not be too strong.

If outright greater darkvision would be too strong, maybe something like full-color darkvision?

I haven't read any of the remaster rules yet, but I'm not opposed to using them if the party wants to do it.

I'm fine either way; I'm just asking because I'm thinking about playing a Cleric, which I might build very differently depending on which ruleset we're using.

By the way, are we using Remastered rules?

I'm likely to apply to this; I have several interesting possibilities for builds in mind.

Silver2195 wrote:

Mostly agreed. It's interesting to note that PF2 and D&D5 both have full-caster Bards and at-will cantrips. But this is coincidental; PF1 and D&D4 also had at-will cantrips, and PF2 made Bards full casters to give all four traditions a full caster class in the core rulebook. (I have no idea what D&D5's reasoning for making Bards full casters was. Bards were the only "Tier 3" core class in D&D3.5; they didn't need "fixing"!)

Probably two-fold:

1. Bards were seen as weak in 3e, and they thought they could use the buff.

2. 5e doesn't have 2/3-casting like in 3e. There's full casting, there's half casting (what paladins, rangers, and artificers have), and there's third casting (what eldritch knights and arcane tricksters have).

"Seen as weak" by who, exactly? Bards weren't weak except in comparison to the (overpowered) full casters.

Jerdane wrote:

Ed Reppert wrote:

Bluemagetim wrote:

he thought this game was just a copy

Why would anyone bother producing a ttrpg that is "just a copy" of another one? Even aside from Intellectual Property theft considerations?

I don't think such an assumption is too unreasonable. Pathfinder 1e was a modestly-patched replica of D&D 3.5, after all, so maybe they figured that Pathfinder 2e was a modestly-patched replica of D&D 5e?

I would argue more of a modest spiritual successor to 4th edition D&D personally. I find way more 4E DNA than I find 5e. It feels like this game has very little in common with 5e aside from commonly named Classes and uses a d20.

Mostly agreed. It's interesting to note that PF2 and D&D5 both have full-caster Bards and at-will cantrips. But this is coincidental; PF1 and D&D4 also had at-will cantrips, and PF2 made Bards full casters to give all four traditions a full caster class in the core rulebook. (I have no idea what D&D5's reasoning for making Bards full casters was. Bards were the only "Tier 3" core class in D&D3.5; they didn't need "fixing"!)

I'm seeing a lot of debate in the "Remaster dislikes" thread about interpretation of the changes/clarifications to wounded/dying, including whether there was some sort of unresolved internal argument at Paizo over how it should work. Some of this strikes me as wishful thinking from people who just don't like the Remastered wounded/dying rules, but further clarification probably can't hurt.

Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:

except that one time our Fighter insisted dueling that samurai skeleton that turned out to be a level match for him while we watched.

Completely out of topic, but we also had this situation upon us like a year ago. Our Champion ended up in a forced duel with no possible back up against an undead evil champion of our level. We could only talk to her and give her advice from the outside, it was one of the weirdest encounters I've seen. With the champion reaction invalidated and the enemy champion having theirs it was a miracle that she ended up surviving that one.

I'm guessing the Champion was a Paladin of Iomedae? That "refuse a challenge from an equal" anathema is harsh.

I'm not a fan of settings with a straightforwardly knowable afterlife to begin with, frankly. But since D&D tradition demands it, Pharasma fills the role reasonably well.

Gorum is a bit more interesting than people give him credit for (specifically the "he might be a half-orc" angle). He's not especially "playable," though; he's one of several gods with anathema that can easily be interpreted in an unworkable way. The Remaster might be changing this.

Erastil makes sense as part of the setting, but he's even more "unplayable" than Gorum.

Calistria always struck me as too unpleasant for a CN god that allows CG followers.

Achaekek is probably my favorite of the evil gods. He fulfills a valuable role in the setting as the guy who gives Red Mantis Assassins their orders and stops people who find "clever" ways to become gods, but he also has a fair amount of characterization.

Silver2195 wrote:

I also expressed interest in joining via PM, but I’m not super familiar with this site’s PM system, so I’m not sure how noticeable that was.

Hey there! You actually caught me at work last night so while I *did* see and read your PM, I ended up pulled away before I could properly respond to it and then it had admittedly slipped my mind by the time I was able to sit back down at my computer again.

That said, while I appreciate your interest in the game, I'm afraid that this is a private game with players pulled from a pool of friends rather than one that's open to the public.

Fair enough!

Nalinivati also gives 9 spells.

I also expressed interest in joining via PM, but I’m not super familiar with this site’s PM system, so I’m not sure how noticeable that was.

I think I find myself liking the idea of the 4 traditions than how they've actually been implemented and while I don't think we should go back to specific class lists but I do think we need something better than just 4 lists.

Technically, we have five lists, thanks to the Elementalist archetype.

I think it would be interesting to see more classes with Elementalist-style bespoke spell lists. It should be possible to use the trait system to effectively do this without actually writing out long lists, as the Captivator archetype shows. (Technically, Captivator uses spell schools, but I assume the Remastered version with just say either "mental or illusion" or "emotion or illusion" instead of "enchantment or illusion.")

Of course you would have to give those classes other benefits to make up for their limited spell lists.

Silver2195 wrote:

OK, here's something I'm confused about. The wiki entry on the Eternal Emperor gives the impression that it was the dominant religion almost everywhere in Lung Wa, and that it was only after the fall of Lung Wa that people in the Successor States converted to the worship of deities. The Player's Guide for Season of Ghosts (set very soon after the fall of Lung Wa) gives the impression that the worship of various deities is perfectly mainstream. Was there a retcon here, or am I just misunderstanding something?

Edit: The Player's Guide even says, "One of Lung Wa’s chief concerns when they first expanded into Willowshore was to reduce the likelihood of an undead uprising. They solved it by building a cathedral to Pharasma."

I assume that the worship of deities has been a thing that was done in hiding. Bit like Desna worship in Nidal. And when the Lung Wa fell, it gave freedom for other deities to be worshipped.

But perhaps we get answers in Tian Xia world guide.

But again, Lung Wa itself built Willowshore’s cathedral of Pharasma.

OK, here's something I'm confused about. The wiki entry on the Eternal Emperor gives the impression that it was the dominant religion almost everywhere in Lung Wa, and that it was only after the fall of Lung Wa that people in the Successor States converted to the worship of deities. The Player's Guide for Season of Ghosts (set very soon after the fall of Lung Wa) gives the impression that the worship of various deities is perfectly mainstream. Was there a retcon here, or am I just misunderstanding something?

Edit: The Player's Guide even says, "One of Lung Wa’s chief concerns when they first expanded into Willowshore was to reduce the likelihood of an undead uprising. They solved it by building a cathedral to Pharasma."

Calliope5431 wrote:

Well, the fact that they don't actually exist in PF 1e for starters.

Hell's Vengeance is a canon line of APs and it has its final book start at 15th level. I could easily create said cheese Wizard play that module, and have a character that participated in a canon event using those rules. That would satisfy my conditions for that character existing in canon as I don't think a TTRPG should get to pick and choose between what happens at the table and what happens in lore. If we did that half of D&D's settings and thus Golarion which is built from the bones of D&D wouldn't exist.

This is silly. What happens at the table differs wildly by table.

Edit: Is there any tabletop RPG with a substantial number of adventures/splatbooks that actually fulfills your standards of lore consistency?

Interchangeable for Int and Cha based casters isn’t the same as interchangeable for Wis based casters, though. The arcane list being so much longer than the other three doesn’t matter much for Cha based casters (who have a limited repertoire) or Int based casters (who have to add spells to the book/familiar individually), but it’s a big deal for Wis based casters, who know all common spells on their tradition’s list.

Edit: This was in response to Calliope.

3-Body Problem wrote:

The four traditions, especially with arcane schools being removed, are fundamentally incompatible with how magic used to work on Golarion. Any attempt to define them without there being some in universe reason for them having changed in the first place is doomed to failure because all the pieces that must fit to explain things cannot currently fit. I hope Paizo is willing to write the changes they've been forced to make into lore without destroying the already tenuous connection some classes have to their past versions.

I honestly do not see how this can be when the 4 traditions are a basic foundation of PF2.

I think 3-Body Problem means that they're incompatible with lore from some point in the PF1 era. Which they probably are, but so are a lot of things. Drow not actually existing contradicts multiple PF2 APs, but we can roll with it and pretend that all friendly drow were actually normal cavern elves and all unfriendly drow were actually serpentfolk. Contradictions with PF1 material are even easier to politely ignore.

I think an occult Druid/Cleric equivalent could work if they're very careful to keep actual class features to a minimum. It would also be potentially interesting as a concept, someone who has a mystical connection to mind-breaking things but has high enough Wis to stay sane. I'm not sure what the class name would be; Mystic is already used for a Starfinder class, and Pathfinder seems to try to avoid giving classes the kind of clunky compound-word names that 3.5 classes often had.

An arcane Druid/Cleric equivalent would probably be too flexible. I suppose you could use the trait system, or some gimmick like "only spells with a casting time of three actions of fewer," to give it access to a subset of the arcane list instead of the full list.

I also think that this thread: Explain Occult to me should be linked.

And I especially don't want to see this thread devolve into saying that each tradition has 'one true caster' class and all the other classes that cast from that tradition are 'cheaters' and are doing it wrong.

Wait, which is supposed to be the one true caster for occult? Are Bards the ones doing it right and Psychics the cheaters, or is it the other way around?

I see the magical traditions as focusing on two particular essences each, but not strictly limited to them. My impression is that casting spells that involve the "wrong" essence generally involves some sort of workaround, such a specific deity granting a spell that fits their nature for divine casters, or moving physical objects via the Ethereal Plane for occult casters. The arcane list is so long in part because Wizards are especially good at finding workarounds (although they still can't heal because they're not good enough at manipulating vital essence).

Cori Marie wrote:

Asmodeus is, specific portrayals of Asmodeus are stickier.

What's "specific?" Paizo has never, to my knowledge, portrayed Asmodeus as a colossal serpent (though they have done that with Geryon).

Asmodeus as the leader of a hyper-orderly Hell is a pretty different character from the serial killer from the Book of Tobit. Though I guess he is listed as one of the King-rank demons in the Lesser Key of Solomon.

OK, I'm submitting this Changeling Kineticist character: Abadia Summers

I'm interested in this. Thinking about a Gnome Rogue or a Human Changeling (Snow May) Kineticist.

The really interesting question is: would an occult equivalent of a Cleric or Druid (i.e., a Wis-based caster that automatically knows all common spells on its list) be overpowered? I think it would probably be fine as long as "extra" class features are kept to a minimum; the Bard is very powerful, but a lot of the power comes from composition spells like Inspire Courage rather than the occult list. An arcane Cleric or Druid counterpart would be more questionable.

Not that it really matters, since alignment is being removed with the Remaster anyway, but shouldn't a Redeemer be NG instead of N?

Re: Yagyū, isn't Jubei too young to have an adult son? The Player's Guide describes her as "a capable young adult."

OK, here's the second character: Kaya of Northridge

No "boon slots" spent yet (nagajis, katana, and wakizashi are all common in Willowshore), but she's likely to take the Ritualist Dedication in the future.

NPCs friendships/enmities weren't mentioned in this thread but were mentioned in the "discussion" thread. I assume she would get along well with Jubei, a fellow intellectual who shares her cultural/religious background, and that Elizeth would distrust her for some of her esoteric interests (particularly her knowledge of Necril).

I'm thinking about creating a second character too. Probably a Northridge Scholar Nagaji Fighter.

Antonio Jackson D'Angelo wrote:

Relying on squishy pets for benefits is concerning, particularly if there is a spell slot tax just to keep them alive.

Phase Familiar is a focus spell, not a slot, and witches get it for free. Witch familiars also revive at your next daily preparation. If you can get enemies to waste actions and MAP to murder your resurrecting pet instead of your non-resurrecting witch or allies, that may be a win for your group. The only downside is you lose the ability to refocus, and obviously the familiar abilities themselves, until the next morning. How much that matters will depend on the time pressure you're under. (This also assumes nothing else changes about refocusing or reviving. It may very well.)

There's also a lot of familiar abilities which can keep them alive. One simple option is flight, which doubles as a useful scouting power. Rage of the Elements added a bunch of new defensive options, too.

The witch is going to be in an interesting spot that kind of out-wizards the wizard without time pressure. Like a wizard they need to manually add spells to their preparation options. But they also have familiar abilities which can be swapped daily. And depending on your GM's rulings familiars make excellent scouting tools.

It is potentially a bit weird in flavor terms to be sacrificing your familiar frequently, even if it revives the next day. It can potentially make sense for certain character concepts (Homura making Kyubey suffer is funny), but if the familiar and the Witch are actually supposed to be friends it's kind of awkward.

OK, here's my Leshy Kineticist: Enoki

I'm flexible about the heirloom; I'm willing to change it to whichever one isn't taken.

I have read and acknowledge the "Horror and Consent" and "About Your Family" sections.

I'm leaning towards a Leshy Kineticist (specializing in Wood). For background, maybe Close Ties (with Mountain Summit Grass) or Outskirt Dweller.

I'm a bit unclear on mechanical aspects of some of these backgrounds, though. Close Ties grants the Specialty Crafting feat but not the Crafting skill, which is a bit odd. I assume it just does nothing unless and until I take the Crafting skill?

I'm interested. I'm thinking about playing a Druid or Kineticist.