Skull's page

IIRC. DnD 4E just launched, and we were really not impressed. I started in DnD 3.0 and then 3.5, but 4 was a hot mess.

So someone in the group did some digging and came across a playtest for Pathfinder. Back in the days when a cleric's channel was both to heal and harm at the same time. We've been playing Pathfinder 1e ever since.

After Pathfinder 2e came out we tried it a bit, but then explored some other systems (some 40K stuff and more fantasy settings), but Pathfinder 1e is still my all time favourite system.

Depends on the character...

As a dwarf it has to be a big axe or hammer.

If human, or any half humans Greatsword or a Bastard sword.

I'm currently making a character that will use a large Bastard Sword because... Well I recently picked up Dark Souls, and wanted an Ultra Greatsword in Pathfinder.
(Im only using a claymore in DS1, ultra greatswords are slow and the attack swing doesn't work for me)

Max your attack stat, whatever it is (casting stat for casters, for example). Then up your DEX to the max allowed by the Armor category you are proficient in.

Upping WIS is good for Perception, Initiative, Will save.

That's it for ability scores.

Depending on the class, raising Con a bit is never a bad idea.

5ft difference is breaking the sound barrier?

Hahaha, not entirely, but they have ways of improving it further via heritage feats etc...

The newer movement values just feel off to me. Along with several other heritage mechanics.

But yeah, this is more a thread about how PF1 is still an active healthy community. :)

After PF2 hit, we tried to play is, but things just felt off. I was also not a fan of all the heritage feats and how they work.

And I still don't understand how elves break the sound barrier, but dwarves move slower than the small races. Makes no sense to me.

Anyhow. Our group has been playing other systems for a while, but I want to get them to seriously consider more PF1 games. It's the system I really enjoyed theory crafting in and there are still a lot of builds left for me to try.

I also don't visit these boards nearly as often as I used to, but I like coming by when I can :)

When I was a lad, I ate four dino eggs
Every morning to help me get large
And now that I'm grown, I eat five dino eggs
So I'm roughly the size of a barge

Because (a) the game is more fun when the one nimble little halfling in the party doesn't force everyone to move at a slower pace so as not to leave them behind, and (b) why not?

Except in the case of (a)

And yes, they do get an ancestry feat to help with this. But now they have to spend a feat to not get slowed by heavy armour, just so they wont fall behind everyone else.

It's a problem I've had with the dwarves since the 1st playtest was released.

Pit Wizard wrote:

I asked the same question earlier. As written, it's not totally useless but it doesn't seem to be a very good use of your money. Adamantine shields, on the other hand, would be very useful.

The Sturdy enchantment for shields is cheaper and stronger than Adamantine, and comes online earlier (compare 7th-level Sturdy to 8th-level Adamantine, and 13th-level Sturdy to 16th-level Adamantine). It's also not Invested, so doesn't count against your 10-item limit.

Only advantages of an adamantine shield would be in an anti-magic field, which you will hardly ever encounter due to rarity. Overall, adamantine doesn't seem too useful for defense.

Wouldn't you be able to make a Sturdy Adamantine shield?

I don't think it would apply.

Firstly because I've never thought of the light hammer being a mini version of a warhammer. Same with picks, but I can see where you are coming from.

Secondly Dwarven Weapon Familiarity (the initial feat in the chain) has this flavour text:

Your kin have instilled in you an affinity for hard-hitting weapons, and you prefer these to more elegant arms. You are trained with the battle axe, pick, and warhammer.

So it looks like Dwarves favour big heavy weapons. Which I totally agree with.

So it wouldn't make sense for the follow up feats to help with the light versions of their beloved weapons.

It works the same as old Toughness, which is fine.

1hp per level. I think it's great on anyone.

The only difference between PF1 and 2 toughness, is it use to start you out on 3hp, and then +1 for every level after 3rd.

Just some feedback after our 1st 2e session. It felt a lot better than the playtest ever did. I cannot pinpoint anything specific, but a lot of nice changes. It felt smoother as well.

So good job, looking forward to the next session.

I was very skeptical, and negative after playing 2 playtest games.

However, we are starting an Age of Ashes game later today. And I literally spent most of yesterday jumping around on the Archives of Nethys page, comparing classes and having a hard time to pick.

The cleric page was a bit confusing, as it didn't explain the "Cleric Focus Powers" section, but a friend who has the PDF could easily steer me to the correct answers.

Ended up rolling a Fighter, because Ive never been a fan of casters. I really like how a lot of it has turned out. Only actual play will let me decide if I like it better.

I also watched some review/reveal clips on youtube. One of which was almost 2 and a half hours... So yeah, I am exited to give it a go.

Awesome!

This looks good!

We are starting a Age of Ashes game later today, and I will be using this sheet :)

I think when rolling for stats. The best option is if everyone rolls one set, and this set is open to the table. Anyone can use an array that was rolled. This will help make it a little easier to get a fair stat array per player.

GM should still be free to disallow really low or high stat array. :)

David knott 242 wrote:

LordVanya wrote:

NikkEatsRocks wrote:

...2E is set further in the timeline ...

Not as far I know, it isn't.

Personally, I think they should set the 2e timeline to 100 to 200 years later and swap out the signature characters for their descendants.
That way the major differences in the game system can be chalked up to 'this is how things are done now'.

Paizo advanced the timeline by about 10 years, from the date that PF1 was published to the expected publication date of PF2. During that time, the official story is that all PF1 adventures were completed successfully by their respective PC parties, and other changes will presumably be detailed later as needed.

Good to know, thanks.

I still think they should bump that up by at least 10 fold.

Wait, I always thought that Kingmaker takes a few decades to finish at least?

Crayon wrote:

I don't know, I think I'd prefer if they dropped the mechanics from Ancestry all together and made it a purely aesthetic choice.

It's simpler, makes more sense, is more balanced, and presents more character options.

Pretty tough when you have races that for story reasons have innate differences, biology, or special abilities and all the NPCs have these and the PCs have no access to such things, or if NPCs also do not get it, it feels very flat and setting voiding to strip all those traits from things that did have them considering they are maintaining the same world.

Just realised that he poor NPCs all need to have these choices made too. This sounds like a lot of admin that no one asked for.

I still think all races need to have their racial abilities. Heritage and ancestry feats should be there to add extra flavourful options, or simply to advance existing abilities.

They really should just go back to the 30 foot speed as a baseline and reinstate general maneuvers like Charge and Run.

I like this plan. 25ft was a weird number from the start. I also find it very strange that all the small races are now just as fast as humans.

Poor dwarves are the only race to move at 20ft (10 in full plate). Sure you can get a heritage feat to negate 5ft of this, but now you are a weird looking human, who can see in the dark.

Earlier I complained that playing a dwarf felt very bland, now it has been made more so.

I probably shouldn't mention Darkvision, or they will change this to a heritage feat as well.

Aether Seawolf wrote:

Everyone seems to have some issue with this area of the game, and I wanted to collect all the ones I've seen and experienced in one post. The problems appear to be:

>Growing into a race is weird roleplay wise. The game assumes I'm an adult adventurer, why am I still developing core racial abilities.
>The races feel really flat and flavorless.
>General Training and Natural Ambition are so far out of the league of everything else it hurts
>Race abilities (for the most part) are situational to the point of being painful
>Low incentive for players to branch out of human

The best example I can give is that an arcane caster elf has no incentive to take two of their strongest abilities - weapon familiarity and otherworldly magic, leaving Ancestral Longevity as the good pick with little growth. The other abilities are situational or not beneficial to a build. While abilities don't all need to line up for a build (I'm personally a big fan of suboptimal play - halfing barbarian and all) it would help if there were some flavor synergy that felt good.

100% agree. Love the concept and the variation in speed and hit points, but the ancestry feats are not powerful or meaningful enough, and we need more of them to make characters unique at first level.

Compare a Pathfinder Elf to a D&D 5E Elf

Pathfinder Elf
Hit points 6
Speed 30
Low-Light Vision
1 Ancestry Feat (Otherworldly Magic grants 1 cantrip)

D&D 5E Elf
Speed 30
Darkvision 60 ft.
Keen Senses (proficiency in Perception)
Fey Ancestry (Advantage versus charm saves, can't be put to sleep)
Trance (sleep less)
Subrace (even more customization, for example, High Elf)
Elf Weapon Training
Cantrip (grants 1 cantrip)
1 Extra Language

Hands down the 5E elf is cooler. The Pathfinder 2E elf is about 5 abilities short. Customizing our elf-iness over 20 levels is a cool optimization over 5E, but more power needs to be front loaded.

If Pathfinder 2E added about 2-3 more ancestry feats at first level and made...

Wow, just checked out the 5E dwarf (1st time taking a look at it)

For those interested:
Dwarf Traits
Your dwarf character has an assortment of inborn Abilities, part and parcel of dwarven Nature.

Ability Score Increase: Your Constitution score increases by 2.

Age: Dwarves mature at the same rate as humans, but they’re considered young until they reach the age of 50. On average, they live about 350 years.

Alignment: Most Dwarves are lawful, believing firmly in the benefits of a well-ordered society. They tend toward good as well, with a strong sense of Fair Play and a belief that everyone deserves to share in the benefits of a just order.

Size: Dwarves stand between 4 and 5 feet tall and average about 150 pounds. Your size is Medium.

Speed: Your base walking speed is 25 feet. Your speed is not reduced by wearing Heavy Armor.

Darkvision: Accustomed to life underground, you have superior vision in dark and dim Conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in Darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in Darkness, only shades of gray.

Dwarven Resilience: You have advantage on Saving Throws against poison, and you have Resistance against poison damage.

Dwarven Combat Training: You have proficiency with the Battleaxe, Handaxe, Light Hammer, and Warhammer.

Tool Proficiency: You gain proficiency with the artisan’s tools of your choice: smith’s tools, brewer’s supplies, or mason’s tools.

Stonecunning: Whenever you make an Intelligence (History) check related to the Origin of stonework, you are considered proficient in the History skill and add double your proficiency bonus to the check, instead of your normal proficiency bonus.

Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Dwarvish. Dwarvish is full of hard consonants and guttural sounds, and those characteristics spill over into whatever other language a dwarf might speak.

Was planning on adding this feat to a fighter I was brainstorming, but then picked up that it was a reaction feat. So I rolled with Hardy again.

Also, I am not a fan of the very limited "ancestry" abilities you get for free. Mechanically all that separated my dwarf from the human and even elves was darkvision, slower movement and that I resisted poison.

I suppose this is not too bad, but the ancestry felt very watered down. Id feel a lot better if you start @ lvl1 with 2 ancestry feats (obviously only one heritage; in fact, force one as a heritage feat and one other).

FireManed_Viking wrote:

So I’m not sure if I’m interpreting this correctly… But with the Giant totem you gain the Titan Mauler ability. Which allows you to use a larger weapon like last edition, and you get a bonus to your conditional damage while raging. However, you gain sluggish 1 as well which adversely affects the character.

Am I correct in my calculations?

When Raging without larger weapon:
+2 Damage, -1 AC, +Temp HP

When Raging with Lager weapon:
+3 Damage, -2 AC, +Temp HP, -1 Dex Checks, -1 Reflex Saves.

I haven’t played this character yet and I’m assuming the choice to add the Sluggish 1 to the ability is for balancing however in the end I’m only getting an addition 1 to damage when all is said and done. I feel that you could have applied the slowed condition to this ability instead leaving the rage bonuses as they were would work better thematically. You would still get the +2 dam, but only have 2 actions a round.

It doubles the rage bonus damage, so +4 damage. Where it gets confusing is some people are also adding in the large weapon change that was in a sidebar somewhere (I don't have my book on me). I do not think it gets that bonus.

Also, give back barbarians shields! I want my Viking raider.

I am also a little confused as to why Barbarians are not trained in shields. In PF1 I always went two hander, because there was a 1.5x Str mod bonus, but now I would be keen to go with a shield. Esp for an Ulfen Raider type character. I suppose I will need to roll fighter for the same feeling, but without rage.

Wait... so there isnt even a "champion powers" list, you need to go through all the spells to find them?

Ouch. Guess i will make a list myself then at some point. Havent taken a look in a few days, but I also missed the part where you can pick these as class feats.

EDIT: okay, now I see how it works. They are listed under paladin feats. Then they tell you to check out the power later in the book.not as confusing as I initially thought.

Trust me; youre gonna love this. This is my base form a dwarf; aargh, now this is a dwarf, that has ascended past a normal dwarf. Lets call this a dwarlf lvl5. Aaargh; now this is a dwarf that has ascended past an ascended dwarf. I call this a level9. And this... is to go... even further beyond....

Aaaaarrrrgggghhhhh!

At least that is how monks can play it off?

Not a fan of the unlock racial abilities later in your life thing either.

Val'bryn2 wrote:

I have a plan for a skinwalker bat blooded, from Tian Xia, the Forest of Spirits, a brawler who calls himself King Guan, as in Japanese, near as I can tell from my limited knowledge, would be Guan-o.

Actually N is a sound by itself in the Japanese syllabary, as well as the sound "No". So Guan would sound like Guan.

Sauce: Studying Japanese.

O is the suffix they use to refer to kings in Japanese, so Guan-O would still work :P

I watch too much anime...

Because everyone needs to start somewhere?

It's literally when you get straight out of bard college or whatnot. So you are relying more on luck than anything else. You lack experience. Level 2 feels a lot safer as a 2 handed crit won't kill you in one shot. But this is how the game works.

What I dislike more are backstories like "I was captain of a ship and saved the mayor of X town" or "Single handedly fought off a tribe of orcs". No you didn't, you are level 1 XD

Looks to me like the only thing you could do to protect the family was to either kill the prisoner, or hand them to some other crime boss who doesnt like them and ask them to "do what you will"

If the whole town is out to get the innocent people, convince them to leave :P

It does sound like this GM was just out to get you. Alignment changes should be for really drastic stuff... Killing an obviously evil person threatening innocent life is not.

If you want something interesting. Id recommend an Oradin (paladin with a 1 level oracle dip).

I would look at Nature or Lore Oracle. Each of these has a revelation that lets them use their Cha modifier to AC instead of Dex. Lore has Sidestep Secret. Which also lets you use Cha instead of Dex for Reflex saves. Nature has Nature's Whispers that also lets you use Cha instead of Dex for CMD. There was also a ruling that you cannot add a single stat to anything twice. So Nature would work better without needing to check with your GM.

This also gives you a couple of extra skills and spontaneous spells for possible healing.

Gnomes would work nice for this build, because they get a Con and Cha bonus.

We frequently joke about making a character that keeps taking 1 level of a new class that does not have +1BAB at first level. Get to level 10 with 0 BAB!

I always jokingly reference MILF's acid arrow... XD

Dwarven fighter... I approve of this build.

Fighter is still a decent class, esp if you are new to the system.

Don't listen to all the complaints on the board.

Diminuendo wrote:

Urban Ranger

Favored Community is strictly worse than vanilla Favored Terrain, but I like the idea of re-training it by spending one week and 1000 gold at the Pub.

Urban Ranger gets Trapfinding. Add in that Favored Terrain is...mediocre, and it's not by any means a straight downgrade.

Favored Community is definitely worse than Favored Terrain don't get me wrong, Favored Terrain just isn't super impressive to start with and Urban Ranger's other replacements are all at least as good as what they replace, and in some cases better. Invisibility Trick is vastly better than Hide In Plain Sight, just for example.

Hell's Rebels is the perfect AP for the archtype...

Rysky wrote:

Skull wrote:

The item's name doesn't make sense anymore. As Fortunate indicated the luck bonus.

And negating a deathblow isn't fortunate?

Slightly lucky once hat?

Pointy hat of a keeping your head once?

So... Are they changing the item's name to "the Jingasa of the ripped off warrior, who should have bought a ring of protection instead"?

I only had 2 PFS characters with this item out of the 14. And it was kind of for the flavor of it. The 1/day crit or sneak attack negation was a nice trick, but it was mostly for the +1 luck bonus.

I think they could have just removed the daily part and called it a day. Maybe push up the price, but for +1 AC and CMD, 5K should be fine right?

The item's name doesn't make sense anymore. As Fortunate indicated the luck bonus.

Sadly I know you can vote more than once, but that defies the purpose of a poll...

I actually took the tongues curse for the added fun of rp, but my party members kept learning the weird and exotic languages id pick :(

TriOmegaZero wrote:

I can see how that would be a problem. I highly recommend trying to use the Wasting curse on a warrior oracle of your favorite flavor if you have the chance.

Not a bad idea, Wasting is probably the least crippling of all the curses, and pretty decent for a battle oracle.

My flame oracle had the tongues curse. Just don't focus on language dependent spells...

I am also a fan of spontaneous casters, I cant see myself ever playing a wizard. A sorcerer just has a better feel to it and I don't need to pick spells each day. Also love the druid, wish there was a spontaneous druid like class (hint hint).

*edit* 40 new votes and no new monks... ai ai

Wow, I have finally reached the end of the thread :)

Silly thing called work kept me busy, along with watching Hajime no Ippo for the first time.

Okay. I haven't actually seen the class yet, but I mostly like what I have read here.

I am not a fan of the reduced will save (I don't mean to light that fire again), or the now needing to use ki for previously passive abilities. I love my passive monk abilities like disease and poison immunity. I always trade out spell resistance; as it actually prevents possible healing/buffs and wastes time on an extra roll your friendly neighborhood cleric needs to do.

I love style strikes and how they work. One of the impression I got for the unchained monk early in the thread was a Muay Thai fighter: Kicks, headbutts and elbow strikes sound right at home. Along with the extra hitting chance and hit points. It might also explain the lower will save as Muay Thai is less mystical than say the more traditional envisioning of the monk.

The new Flurry is also awesome, reminds me more of the 3,5 one.

I would have preferred to keep my will save and my d8 to balance that out. Maybe give monks the option to select one save to be weaker. I for one would have expected a lower fort save rather than will.

Okay, those are my ideas on the new monk.

There is an item called the Dwarven Thrower. This could just be altered to work with whatever would be fitting for Thor :P

Mjolnir probably has a Sun Blade thing going on where it deals damage like a warhammer, can be thrown like a light hammer (with the returning property) and counts as either for the purposes of feats and proficiency.

Daid wrote:

I think the reason why I'm having difficulties put deities on the neutral axis is because there is a pretty clear good guy bad gut line in norse mythology based on who fights for which side at Ragnarok.

I have heard that in previous editions of the game your alignment was very much about which team you were on in the cosmic fight, but in PF alignment is more closely linked to morality. Good characters are those that are compassionate and will take risks to help others, even strangers. Many Norse gods, even the "good guys," are not really concerned with others on this level.

The monk can finally afford to buy a ki mat.

Xedrek wrote:

Te'Shen wrote:

shroudb wrote:

You know your DM is out to get your witch when 9/10 opponents are elves, halfelves and dragons. . . .

Arachnofiend wrote:

You know the GM is out to get your WITCH when suddenly all of your humanoid opponents are elves.

Hmm... I'm guessing some DMs are passive aggressive about slumber hexes builds... add undead and constructs to the elves/dragons then.

Good gods yes

You know your DM is out to get your WITCH when the band of knolls runs past the rest of the party to take down the first level witch in the back

I'm sorry, but it's just good tactics to kill casters first. The group that I play with employs this tactic often, so when relatively intelligent humanoid opponents (such as gnolls) do the same to us it's hard to cry foul. This isn't a GM being a jerk necessarily, it is simply smart tactics to attack the unarmored guy in the back mumbling to himself. Whether it be witch, wizard, or some other caster is of little consequence.

Subsequently this is why our group travels in a line with one melee character upfront and another survival character in the back. Squishy characters go in the middle.

Just realized that a smart party would in fact 'hire' some mentally ill people to walk at the back and mumble to themselves when something stressful like combat starts. hehehe

I love monks. I follow the golden rule of ignoring the "monks suck" feeling the forums give off. I know monks have issues, but every monk I make has been a blast to play. The different archtypes keep it interesting for me.

Sure basically everyone trades out slow fall for something else. A ring of feather fall is not that expensive after all.

I for one do not see how a sacred fist makes a better monk than the monk. Ki pool much later, ac bonus to deflection, no disease immunity, high jump, evasion, skill points, reflex save, stunning fists (required for many style feats) andmore.

It is a cool archtype I would rather play than the cleric/monk or druid/monk I was planning as a replacement divine class for CC however. It just doesnt feel as cool as a monk. But like everything else in this game I will only really know once I play the class.

I sometimes get the feeling dpr is something far too many forum users focus on.

Sorry for the rant

I still want to make that Dwarven swashbuckler with his Heavy Pick :)

Fiendsplatter

Just remember that amongst your weaponry are such diverse elements as: fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to the <religious institution>, and nice red uniforms.

:P

I am against the change. Not only for monks loosing a cool ability that fitted with their flavour, but also because it will now take up mode admin at the table. I used to just say like I do with deflect arrows: the first hit is the one i deflect. Now I'm going to have to weigh my options and call a specific attack.

Id also like to know as a PFS player: will characters be allowed to retrain? I have a level 6 monk who was going for crane wing on his next level up, but now I don't see a point to doing it. This was my "jedi" monk character and deflecting a melee attack a round with a temple sword seemed like it was a perfect fit for the concept -> the feat states you need a hand free, not that you deflect with said hand ;)

weapon focus is now a better option than crane riposte tbh.

Somehow I hope this gets undone, like the monk's Flurry = TWF that was fixed back to "you can flurry with one weapon".

@dark78660: The reason why at least for the viking it is quesrionable is because it says "a viking gains the rage ability as the barbarian class feature, but her barbarian level is considered to be her fighter level –3." The bolded portion is meaningless if the intent of the ability was only to gain the basic rage ability, excepting for determining how many rounds of rage you would get.

I contend that the rules as intended (at least for the viking) is that you should gain Rage, Greater Rage, Tireless Rage, but not Mighty Rage. Mighty Rage is a 20th level barbarian ability, so would require viking level 23 to obtain. Tireless Rage is a 17th level barbarian ability, which would be obtain at viking level 20. Also, if the Viking didn't function in this manner it would be a terrible archetype, which I don't think was the intention. A +4 to strength and con just isn't enough to justify the loss of all four level of weapon training.

Wild Stalker is phrased in the same manner as the viking ability, so I would contend it funcitons in the same manner. The Wild Stalker gives up the entirety of the animal companion, and it can be debated about whether this is equal to gaining Rage, Greater Rage, and Tireless Rage but at elast on the surface to me they are not incredibly unequal.

Archtypes are supposed to be worse off than the base class, or at least on par. Otherwise you get one awesome archtype that everyone takes. (OK those Invulnerable Ragers...)

These archtypes get the barbarian's rage class feature. Nowhere in that feature does it mention greater, tireless or mighty rage. The part you put in bold is to determine which rage powers you qualify for and for how many rounds you can rage a day.

EDIT: ninja'd :P

Dodge.

As far as I understand the vow: You can have 1 magical item, some basic clothing and enough gold to survive off of.

The gold you earn above that you can do with as you will: Divide among the rest of the party, send back to your monastery or teacher, donate to charity or whatever other option you can think of. As long as your monk doesn't directly benefit from it.

If I were to ever play this vow, I would send half the money to a monastery/teacher and the other half is kept for the party. Perhaps to some monk potion fund. Where the party has spare healing potions/wands that the monk can access as well.

But, I don't really see this vow ever working. As a monk you are already MAD. You need lots of magic items to break even with the rest of the party.

I do like the idea of the monk who has no possessions, but it doesn't work in a fantasy role playing game.

# EDIT: Oh, I keep forgetting that taking vows replaces Still Mind. I will probably never take any vows. :P

Ninja, because Batman

Monks should be listed as priests.

That is after all what they really are.

Betty.