Soullos's page

The number of repetitive complaints about the ending is bordering on trolling at this point. We get it. Some people don't like the ending. You know what? It's an RPG you can change it. No one is going to come to your house in the middle of the night and change it back.

I imagine these people knocking on Tolkien's door in the 1960s demanding that Isildur destroy the ring because otherwise the whole story is stupid.

The number of repetitive dismissive remarks to just change the ending is bordering on trolling. We get it. You can change it if you don't like the ending. But it's an AP that many have legitimate complaints about and have every right to complain considering it's a product you buy. And to let others know how the AP is by default. I know I'm being snarky copying your post in such a way, but equating complaints as trolling ain't helping. I too feel the AP is badly written that others have explained already, better than I can. It should've been a novel, IMO.

Thank you Diego. :)

Is it possible to remove Pathfinder Adventure Path #145: Hellknight Hill (Age of Ashes 1 of 6) from my pending order? I only want the other two items in my order.

Oh the product picture changed but now it's right handed friendly. Does that mean the flip side is left handed friendly? I hope so.

As someone who went back to 3.5 after years of 5e and finding it too light on content (and other RPGs not scratching my D&D itch), I found the lack of new releases and continued support liberating. It was content complete. I didn't have to worry about players coming in with the new hotness plucking that one feat or rule to use for their characters. I don't have to anticipate the next book(s) releasing in the near future excited about the supposed new material while thinking the stuff that came before is old hat already. I never have to worry about things getting nerfed or new lists and lists of errata to contend with. And of course, my wallet is very happy. ;)

It's done; complete. I've barely used 1% of the material of a near complete 3.5 collection, always chasing the new releases without really enjoying what I had already. Or quickly abandoning it hopping over to other RPGs, or Pathfinder, or new editions D&D. But now I'm back and I can now sit down and relax and enjoy the mountain of material to my hearts content without outside interference. And I can see the same thing from PF 1e once the last book is released. ;)

oooh! The writing portion is on the left, :D Left handed friendly!

All spell casting classes in 5e can heighten any prepared/known spell all they want by casting a spell in a higher level spell slot and I don't see anyone complain about analysis paralysis. Many new players are getting their feet wet with 5e, a less complex game than either Pathfinders, so I don't see why PF2 can't have free heightening for all spell casters as well. *shrug*

Both Quick Alchemy and Quick Bomber refer to crafting bombs during combat requiring resonance. Even Advanced Alchemy refers to creating Alchemical Items as requiring 1 resonance.

Once the bomb is MADE it costs no resonance to use. Unfortunately the fact that MAKING them costs a resonance is one of the things putting Alchemists so far behind the spell-casting classes.

Ok, I misread what you wrote. I thought you were talking about using bombs already crafted. Yeah, for Quick Alchemy or using Advanced Alchemy it does cost RP to make them, which is a problem. I'm surprised they don't cost Spell points like other classes. At least it doesn't cost RP to craft bombs during downtime with the Craft skill, but yeah not much of a consolation prize...

Bombs: Should never cost resonance, these are the Alchemists primary weapons and the equivalent of Wizard cantrips which also do not cost resonance. If you want to charge resonance for Bombs, put a limit on Cantrips too.

I believe bombs don't cost resonance to use. They don't have the "Operate Activation" which require RP like other magic items and alchemical items do.

I struggle to read the book because it's so dry and lifeless. Nothing really inspires me or gets my creative juices flowing, as opposed to 5e which made me very excited to play every class. PF2, just reads like a college text book about programming and only programmers will find it worth the read. Me, my eyes will glaze over. Yossarian is doing a good job of adding some spark and life to the flavor text. I want to play an alchemist chucking smoke filled dirty bombs now. ;)

On a whole, I do like resonance. Gives CHA more weight and reduces wand of CLW spam. But I just do not like it for consumables. It feels too restrictive on fun, single use items that are better spent for healing instead.

I much prefer the 5e way of doing things. Coming from 5e to this, it feels like I ended up in the stone age.

A few more days now. Can't wait. :D

My two cents: went Resonance was first introduced, it felt weird, but also that there might be something in there. When I learned more about how you got it and what it was for, I started liking it more.

Now instead of having a shirt that gives you an extra move action 1/day and a cloak that turns you into a crow 3/day, you can wear both and decide with your 4 resonance points if you run 4 times, or turn into a crow 4 times, or any mix in between, and didn't have to track remaining uses for neither, just a global Resonance Pool.

When I learned potions costed resonance, I was also up for it. This encourages you to drink that one big level-apropiate powerful potion instead of drinking 20 crappy ones in a row after a fight, same for wands (wich I asumed would cost resonance to activate and would have no charges neither, so if you have 10 resonance points to use on wands, you want to make those 10 heals be better, so you buy better wands).
Making potions cost a valuable resource (Resonance) was also the perfect excuse to make them more powerful (since you are limited to how many you can use in any given day) so you would track your 3 AWESOME POTIONS instead of 20 crappy situational ones; and things like drinking a Healing Potion in Combat wouldn't be so much of a waste of actions (if it did for once heal more than what ANY enemy in the battle field could damage with half their attacks).

I was so into resonance, that I started homebrewing it in my current campaign, giving players wands and items that all have abilities that cost resonance, so they decide what/how they use them. And I do like having a resource similar to "How many spells do I have left? Do I want to burn one for this?" for all clases.

Then the last 2 Blog Posts happened... What a mess... 3 or 4 new kinds of actions that have never been explained to us and that seem that could be easily replaced with "Somatic, Verbal and Material". If you want to have a "Amazing Opperator" Feat later that removes the Opperation Action from items, you can...

Exactly how I feel. I really like RP even if I was a bit iffy on needing it for consumables, but understood why it was there and its benefits. But seeing charges and x/day still in the game makes me scratch my head. Why have RP at all if it's not going to be global for all magic item usage? It should remove fiddly tracking of charges and x/day on multiple items and condense it into one global pool. Having both just ups the fiddlyness.

4 days to craft and item at full retail price, or take extra time for a discount all restricted by item level? I really like this. Simple and doesn't double a PCs wealth or break the economy. It also has a side effect of reducing the need of magic item shops, at least for magic items of your level or lower. :)

Milo v3 wrote:

Disappointing but understandable. I was hoping there might be things in a character option section like unchained eidolon subtypes for the various fiends which don't have material yet, stuff for minions of various fiends, rakshasa themed monk archetypes, etc. But I can see why you'd prioritise other things.

This is not and was never intended to be a "PC option book." If your GM allows evil player characters, then there's a lot of things in there, but the focus of the book is to provide the GM with world background and NPC options and the like to help build foes for you to face. And archetypes are one of those elements that work better for PCs because they help a player hyper-personalize and hyper-specialize their character to make them truly unique. A GM doesn't really need that as much since they can do whatever they want to make a foe unusual.

Plus... there's plenty of archetypes in the book just before and just after this one for you to play with. It's nice to now and then give other design elements a chance to star.

ooh, that sounds promising. As someone who doesn't play PF anymore but still likes to read up on the world and settings, how much crunch is there vs fluff? I'm really interested in sinking my teeth into some juicy fiendish lore. ;)

Pathfinder style-AP and modules for 5e a possibility now? Make it happen Paizo! ;)

I just had a bad taste in my mouth with the first wave of 5e supported books and some came out before the Core rule books were released if I remember correctly. Not going to name names, but I felt it was rushed to the market to be "first!" and quality suffered as a result, IMO. Makes me wary of 5e 3rd party material in general.

It's surprising WotC hasn't made an official license yet. But having said that, I'm very impressed at the quality of work for Tome of Beasts. It looks amazing. It's not a rush job, that's for sure. I see that passion.

hmm...

What license is this being published under? Does kobold have a special license for 5e material? If not then what are the limitations you are developing under?

Btw, looks great! Can't wait for release.

This so much! If this is another 3rd party d20 OGL bastard child trying to imitate 5e (BTW WotC get your **** together and release a license), I'll pass. It does look damn good though. Some high quality looking stat blocks and phenomenal art. That price though is also holding me back. hmm...

That dude in the interview said "story" so much it kind of lost all meaning. >_> Sorry, two adventures a year is not enough. What a depressing interview.

Oh man, reading the topic title got me excited. I was ready to re-sub for a 5e AP haha.

I would rather see something new than an official conversion. If Paizo could get the license, seeing a cool planar style AP dealing with Illithids, the Gith and more would be awesome. Sort of Planescape-esque. :)

EDIT: Oh and something with Yugoloths too. I'm glad to see them back for 5e. :D

Bob the fighter 2/Rogue 1 has 26 hit points maximum. After 3 fights him and the rest of the party are down on hit points with him being at only 11. They take an hour long rest and now Bob can spend up to 3 hit dice (he has 2d10 from fighter and 1d8 from rogue). He spends a fighter hit die (1d10) and lucks out and rolls a 10. He now has 21 hit points. He'd like to be at full so he decides to spend his rogue hit die (1d8) but only rolls a 2 so now he's at 23 hit points. He decides not to spend his last remaining hit die and at a later point that day he can now take another hour long rest and spend his last remaining hit die. Once he does that he'll have to wait until tomorrow when he regains all of his hit die.

Don't forget, you also get to add your CON modifier to each Hitdice roll when healing this way. :)

Awesome. Thanks for the info. :)

So, I ordered these modules near the tail end of the Golem sale. Not sure if this is a dumb question or not, but I'm wondering with the influx of orders that are still pending their shipment, is it possible that one or more of the products I ordered would go out of stock before it was my order's turn to ship out? Either way, I will wait patiently. :)

Good. Maybe we'll get some PDFs now. The one thing I miss the most when switching from Pathfinder to 5e is the digital offerings (that and awesome adventures :) ). WotC is severely lacking in this regard...

I was rushing to get things done before heading out to work so I didn't test out any other options.

Joana and NOG the Demoralizer, thank you for the example shipping prices. That helps. I can plan my budget accordingly. :)

I haven't have a subscription since Jade Regent and I'm considering coming back for Iron Gods AP. Thing is though, how much is the typical shipping cost in the US. I live Oregon btw. I selected the "Cheapest possible" available to on the checkout for shipping (just to test it), but it doesn't tell me what that price is, or at least an estimate price. I don't want to commit to the order just to see what it will cost to ship to me. Is there a way to figure this stuff out, or am I blind?

Is there plans for a 4th Bestiary? I've been out of the PF loop for a while.

I'd also imagine it's to keep the page count divisible by 4 to keep in line for printing.

This is Paizo's chance to truly make martial abilities awesome as all hell. Go nuts, don't even think for a moment melee is mundane! After all, even fighters can have nice things. ;)

I've dropped Weapon Finesse and rolled that into the base mechanics. Essentially, everyone has the feat.

I also allow Wis to damage for Monks instead of Str for unarmed attacks and special monk weapons. These two effects makes him less MAD, only requiring Dex, Con and Wis for their prime stats.

And finally I allow a Monk to still Flurry if he hasn't moved more than half his Fast Movement bonus in the round. So starting at level 6, a monk can flurry after moving 10ft and a level 18 monk can still flurry after moving 30ft.

What is the level range of the dungeon? Does it even have one?

Just noticed this one...Pure Steam PFRPG compatible setting

I love steampunk and I like what I'm seeing so far. I just wish there was more previews and a breakdown of what's inside. $50 for a 200 page book is spendy, even if it is hardcover.

Sadly money is a bit tight and I need to cancel all of my subscriptions. I hope to be back soon. Thanks. :)

Yeah, I agree. I have a player who plays a Paladin who's main thing is to do diplomacy before coming to arms. Granted, he knows very well that may not be the case for most monsters and whatnot, but on this occasion, I will make sure that Ziobe doesn't betray them. This will not only be a good RP section, but it will make the paladin feel good for doing the right thing and thus avoiding needless conflict. But most importantly, I don't want him to feel like he can't RP his character in that manner only to betrayed, especially this early in the AP.

I'm also thinking about the Dragon in Hungry Storm. If the PCs can convince her with irrefutable proof that this was the action of one man, she might be persuaded to spare the rest of the village. She will obviously not be happy and may still pose a threat to the village at a later date. However, if the PCs do convince the dragon and they later find out who was really behind the slaughtering of her eggs, the PCs can get a powerful ally against Katiyana.

... but those changes are, nowadays, relatively small. Things like adding an NPC index and magic item appendix like we did with Jade Regent.

Wow, I didn't realize those were recent additions. Granted, I started with Jade Regent but the NPC galleries and Magic Item appendixes are very handy sections. Great reads too. So is it safe to assume that these are here to stay for future APs?

If I was going to allow Leadership, I'll make it only work for recruiting monsters, not classed NPCs (that means followers are nixed). And also make sure that there is a reason why the PC now has a monster by it's side (perhaps he saved the monster in the previous adventure, won it's favor through might or intellect etc etc). The main reason for this, less paperwork. Just print out the monster stats and you're good to go! Plus, having a monster on your side is kind of cool. :D

*snaps the neck of a PrC* Oh please do not resurrect them! It's hard enough hunting these stupid things down. Last thing I need is some cleric casting his spells messing up my work.

What's that!? Aha, I see another one! *casts disintegrate* ;)

I know they get a pretty big writeup in Lords of Madness. Trying to find them in one of the MM's though.

EDIT: They're also in MM 2, but that's 3.0. If you want 3.5, Lords of Madness is the way to go.

Thank you Soullos for the info, some interesting creatures, now if we could only add the "dirty" template to that old man;)

No problem. :) And I would say "crazy" template would be a good fit too. ;)

So what are the monsters in it's bestairy?

We have:

Chan Chan. CR 1/2 or 3 for a swarm. It's a flying head with bat wings for ears. It spits acid and mutter to himself disrupting spellcasting. Very strange.

Kijimuna. CR 2. Tian Xia goblin essentially. Has a cool ability to steal fire using the fire as dancing lights spell or for an attack. It also prevents the item that had it's fire stolen (torch for example) from being lit for 24 hours.

The Old Man. CR 15. A herald of Irori, god of knowledge and martial arts. This guy is pretty powerful, he's a souped up monk. SR 26, not bad, but has 30 resistance to Acid, Electricity, Cold, Fire and Sonic! Regeneration 15 (Chaotic), and Heal as a spell-like ability 3/day just to name a few. Tough nut to crack.

Oni, Earth Yai. CR 13. An Earth Oni essentially. Can shoot a dense rock spike from its third eye as a swift action 200ft away. Deals 3d6 plus Awesome Blow effect.

Raiju. CR 5. Native to the Plane of Air, this fox-like animal is electricity given a mundane form. He has various electricity abilities and the classic Call Lightning spell 3/day. In dire need, a Raiju can assume the form of living electricity.

Soullos wrote:

Each PC gets +1 point buy point per level. These can be saved up to increase stats further like normal point buy. So a 4th level PC built with 15 standard point buy will have an effective 19 points to spend. This replaces the +1 stat increase every 4 levels.

Kydeem de'Morcaine wrote:

I kinda like it, but I think it's too much. Maybe every other level.

Well, given that the typical use is to point-buy a 17 or 18 (with or without a +2 racial mod on top), then raise it by 1 at level 4, that is effectively an extra 4 point-buy.

I don't have a problem with the guy raising a 14 getting his payoff a level early, then banking a point toward something else.

Or the Con 9 wizard being shocked out of his sedentary life, and finding the fresh air and exercise raise his Con to 12 by level 4.

Over the course of the campaign, having some PCs' low-to-average scores rising to mildly good is less disruptive that That Guy who's always trying to break the extremes of the power assumptions, with his lobotomised ape, or his feeble Str 3, Int 25 wizard, having to be carried round on a tray like the Mekon (or MODOK, for you young'uns).

This reminds me, I forgot one important aspect to this houserule. Normally you can't point buy higher than 18. For this houserule, after level 1, you can point buy above 18, each time costing 4 points. So in essence, those who like to increase their main stat every time can and it's effectively functions like the normal +1 Ability score every 4 levels. This houserule is mainly for MAD PCs giving them that added flexibility they so desperately need IMO.

Ultimate non-Casters. Magic users have enough nice toys as it is. I was hoping that UC would be just that considering casters got some goodies in UM, but nope. I don't mind Paladins, Rangers and even bard getting material, but Wizards, Clerics and other major caster should not have gotten anything in UC, IMO.

The suggestion about Ultimate Subsystems, yeah, I'd buy that in a heartbeat.

Here are my Pathfinder Houserules:

-Combat Expertise and Power Attack is removed from the prerequisites for all Combat Maneuver feats (I want to encourage their use, see below as well).

-You only provoke attack of opportunity for moving, casting a spell and making a ranged attack in a creature's threatened space. You also provoke when you fail to perform a combat maneuver (as opposed to initiating one as before). Every other thing that provoked before, no longer does. There are things that might, but are situational, that could provoke but those are up to the DM.

-Weapon Finesse is removed from the game. All characters can use either Dex or Str for finesse-able weapons. Rogues and Dex Monks/Fighters rejoice!

-Natural Spell banned.

-Vital Strike tree is condensed into one feat. Vital Strike now scales based on the number of attacks you get from BAB after the first.

-Each PC gets +1 point buy point per level. These can be saved up to increase stats further like normal point buy. So a 4th level PC built with 15 standard point buy will have an effective 19 points to spend. This replaces the +1 stat increase every 4 levels.

Sean K. Reynold's step level advancement.

-Harvesting poisons. With a Survival check, a PC can harvest the poison from a dead creature. The DC is 10 + CR of the creature to harvest 1 dose of that creature's poison (or DC 20 + CR for powerful creatures, subject to the DM's discretion). For each time the PC beats the DC by 5, they harvest one additional dose. An Alchemist applies a Competence bonus equal to his Alchemist level when harvesting poisons.

-Any Conjuration (Creation) spell that does instantaneous damage or has an energy descriptor (such as Acid, Fire, Cold, Electricity, Force, Sonic) that deals primarily damage is now an evocation spell. Such spells effected are:
-Acid Arrow
-Acid Fog (changed to Reflex save for Half Damage each round)
-Acid Spray
-Fire Seeds
-Incendiary Cloud
-Acid Pit (may make this both schools) APG
-Aqueous Orb APG
-Clashing Rocks (may make this both schools) APG
-Geyser APG
-Stone Call
-Tsunami APG
-Wall of Lava APG

-Any spell with subtype of Conjuration (Healing) is replaced with the new subtype, Necromancy (Healing).

-Mage Armor spell is an Abjuration spell now, not Conjuration as it was before.

Cannon Golem. I mean come on...how cool is that?

A cannon golem? That is awesome, lol. I can't wait for my copy to arrive at my doorstep tomorrow.

Mug of Endless Ale. While not useless, Jade Regent's Flask of Endless Sake is also great. :D Now I need a Mug of Endless Coffee!

Sold! *drools*

It was definitely a pleasant surprise. Thanks again. :)

Wow, that was fast. Thank you. :D