Inevitable

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So, as a lot of people have observed what often makes or breaks a spellcaster at low levels is if they have a good focus spell that is consistently useful.

Now that people have had some time to play with the new wizard schools. Which ones have focus spells that work well?


I'm having a similar issue where the Forum link also takes me to "Not Found," but refreshing the pages fixes it. But having to refresh every single time is annoying.


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Wasn't one of the big criticisms of Necromancer is that there was no way for the thralls to help with flying enemies as levels got higher and that became more common? Or being a completely dead feature in an underwater campaign? Surprised that wasn't mentioned at all.


So for people who haven't heard it turns out that Echolocation is a skill humans can learn and teach. That sounds like something that would be useful to adventurers.

From what I've gathered: There's passive echolocation that uses ambient noise. There's active echolocation where the user relys on things like clicking their tongue or tapping their feet.

Now for a starting point we have the level 1 Awakened Animal ancestry feat Natural Senses that grants 10 feet of Precise Echolocation as an option. As well as the level 5 Beastkin ancestry feat Greater Animal Senses that grants 30 feet of Imprecise Echolocation. Finally we have the human Ancestry Feats General Training and Advanced General Training that imply General Feats and Ancestry Feats are considered roughly equivalent in power.

So the Homebrew seems fairly straightforward.

Basic Echolocation General Feat 1
Gain echolocation 20 feet as an imprecise sense

Advanced Echolocation General Feat 3 (Would 7 with an upgrade be better?)
Enhance the echolocation you gained from Basic Echolocation to Precise

This splits the difference between the two existing Ancestry Feats.

Given the precedent of giving Deaf Characters the Sign Language Skill Feat for free it would make sense to be able to have echolocation as a blind character from level 1. Something like: As an optional rule if your character is Permanently Blind at level 1 they can take Basic Echolocation for free and have the option of trading their level 1 ancestry feat for Advanced Echolocation as well.

The real world version of this uses human audible sound unlike say a bat's ultrasonic echolocation and is a conciously used skill. Giving it a Concentration Free Action to turn on and a penalty to stealth checks would likely fit. But would that be too fiddily or make the feats too weak?

Other opinions?

Sources:

Be Smart YouTube channel

Physiology News Magazine

Smithsonian Magazine

Also I remember in the mid 2000s to early 2010s there was a story about an ATV racer who could use passive echolocation from his and competitor's engine noise so well he could use it to race at over a hundred miles an hour. Implying that yes if you get good enough it can be predcise and fast enough to use in combat. But I can't find it. Anybody have any better luck with Google?


I can understand making Freedom require Mythic because you can have as many tries as you want before your Crit Fail and screw yourselves. But Imprisionment requires the party to keep the subject pinned in a specific 10 foot area for an entire day. Pulling that off on a Mythic Monster with Mythic Resilience is such an incredible feat that the people doing it pretty much already need to be Mythic themselves anyway. It just feels like denying an option to non-Mythic parties for particularly hard to kill non-Mythic monsters.


Did Champions and the Blessed One archtype get the Lay on Hands enhancing feats like accelerating touch and amplifying touch back?


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graystone wrote:
ElementalofCuteness wrote:

I think I will start off by pointing out something I don't know how many noticed.

Level 8 Exemplar Feat Additional Ikon (Pg 38 roughly)
Your story has grown rich enough that three ikons can’t
contain its full complexity. You gain a fourth ikon, which can
be of any type.

Does not have any prerequisites that you must already have three ikons and as such the Multiclass Exemplar can take this feat at level 16 and gain 1 additional ikon of any type.

It doesn't get you 1 extra/additional Ikon but a 4th one. You can't HAVE a 4th one, if you don't have 3 others... It's just how English works, so I don't see that this needs any errata as it gives its prerequisites in its wording. I can't see how someone could claim that they can gain a 4th Ikon through the multiclass archetype with a straight face.

The Devs have said in the past that they only care that someone found something confusing enough to bring to their attention. They don't care about or want disenting replies questioning if something is "really," in need of errata because it clogs up the thread and makes the posts they're interested in harder to find.


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Failedlegend The Eternal Gish wrote:

Hella excited for war of the immortals both the stories and mechanically but assuming mythic doesn't break the system entirely like in 1e I hope Paizo remembers Kineticists exist since some of the stuff really feels like its messing with their thing (such as the lifting an ocean part)

They regularly got screwed in 1e since their blasts aren't considered spells or weapons so ALOT of stuff didn't apply.

IIRC there was a proposal to make Kineticist blasts a type of unarmed strike and their impulses a kind of innate spell specifically so they would integrate with the exsisting system smoothly. But, the majority voted for completely unique mechanics and we are where we are.


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Ezekieru wrote:
Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if the previous level 26-30 creatures were re-balanced to be level 21-25 but with many new Mythic abilities put onto them. Their increased threat level would still exist, but it'd exist under the framework on the PF2E system instead of what they were in PF1E.

Yeah, from the various hints devs have been giving that's my impression as well. If Baba Yaga or Varklops are statted in 2E their math will be that of a level 25 creature, not 30. But they'll have rulebending Mythic Abilities that will have the likes of Treerazer going "Wait, you can do what?" Before squishing him like a bug.


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Tod Culter's Weird Weapons Playlist is made for threads like these.

Now that Starfinder 2E has introduced the Breakdown trait there's no reason we can't have a spring-loaded mod for polearms.


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Count me in on the camp that thinks the current version of multiple limbs is fine for level one but the ancestry feats to expand them at higher levels could use some work.


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I hear that post level 10 incapacitate spells actually get better because the Creature Meta changes. As PCs get more and more abilities to compress actions and leverage teamwork solo bosses the ones functionally immune to incapactiation become much easier to deal with. By contrast creatures with weird esoteric abilities that don't interact with the system math much or poweful support abilities become more common. While HP inflation makes damage AOEs less reliable at clearing them out quickly. As such large numbers of lower level creatures are much more dangerous than they are at earlier levels. So having an incapacitation spell that can just take one or several of those especially dangerous "mooks," off the board in one turn can be encounter changing. To the point of turning a potential TPK into a cakewalk. When comparing a party that has access to such a spell to one that doesn't.


Qaianna wrote:

I wonder how this applies to the caster classes. Or if magic itself is that much of a game changer. How does Strength of Thousands handle levels for students?

I also remember PF1e and its predecessor using ‘NPC’ classes. Level two aristocrats, level three commoners, et cetera. Good or bad idea?

2E already does this to an extent. Check out the Surgeon. As a character they're level 2 in combat but level 6 in medical matters.

This is another way to distinguish NPCs and PCs. NPCs as a rule of thumb are specialized and leveled in a narrow focus of expertise and lower level in everything else. PCs are generalists and are their level in everything they do and every ability they have.

As a side note does anyone else find it hilarious that a Dancer a professional entertainer is just so damn fit that they're just as capable in combat as a professional guardsman like I linked in my earlier post? An Acrobat even more so. It's no wonder that in Extinction Curse the Circus is the one to investigate the local monster attacks.


Page 145
The General Feat Augmented Body has the line: "The bfirst time you take this feat, the augmentation you receive is free as
long as its item level is 1 or lower."

But does not actually say anywhere that the feat can be taken multiple times. Yes, it's implied but not explicitly said.

Page 237
It is a bit odd that the spell Wall of Steel doesn't have the Metal trait when Wall of Plasma directly above it has Fire and Electricity.


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One way of looking at it is comparing say a Level 1 Guard and a level 1 Fighter.

The combat numbers are about the same. However the Guard is trained in 3 skills, the Fighter is trained in 6.

The Guard has one good save. The Fighter has Two.

Both have AOO/Reactive Strike. But that's all the Guard has while the Fighter has an Ancestry Feat, Skill Feat and Class Feat on top.

Against a gang of simple bandits both will be about equally effective. But against something weird like an Akata The Fighter is much more likely to have something in their tool kit to handle things while the Guard could be out of their depth.

So a PC and NPC of the same level are about the same in terms of raw combat power. But the PC is far more versatile and can handle a much wider range of problems and threats.

So that's why towns hire Adventurers rather than use their own guard. To deal with things that are abnormal.


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Berselius wrote:
PossibleCabbage wrote:
I mean "Achaekek cannot kill gods" is a good reason not to write the books in an objective voice.

...but isn't Achaekek more of an divine instrument/construct of the God's wanting various things DEAD though? It probably make sense that Achaekek is loyal to the Gods (if they created Achaekek that is) and thus has sworn it's very existance to never kill one of them.

Though I'm honestly not sure if that applies to DEMIgods (aka Demon Lords, Archdevils, Horsemen of War, etc etc).

My understanding of Achaekek's timeline goes something like this.

Achaekek is one of the OG eight deities created at the dawn of existence by Pharasma's ritual and he was some kind of cosmic judge.

Achaekek has an experience that drives him mad and turns him into the barely sapient God Of Monsters.

Lamashtu obtains godhood via the murder and theft of a deity's power.

A large collection of gods realizes this could lead to Open Season on all deities and needs to be prevented from happening again.

They subdue Achaekek and get to work on restoring his mind. But they also install a bunch of directives into his head to make him the perfect divine assassin and control him. Around the same time they create Grandmother Spider as a servant and implant a bunch of control directives into her as well.

Grandmother Spider proves to be much smarter than these gods intended or realized. She deeply resents having her free will restricted and sees Achaekek as her spiritual brother since he's a victim of it too. She's cunning enough to figure out loopholes in her directives and tricks those gods into freeing her and Achaekek ascending to godhood in the process.

The now sane and free Achaekek considers things and concludes that the chaos of rampant god murder really would undermine reality and takes on the directives he was given voluntarilly.

So killing deities is Anethema to Achaekek because he considers it important to reality's functioning to not do that. But the part where he was forced to do it without a choice is long gone. Still he's been known for resolutely sticking to his personal code for eons.

So whatever made him change his mind must be a pretty big deal. If he's not being impersonated or something that is.


PossibleCabbage wrote:

I think the design point tension is that in terms of game design, the druid should not be more powerful in combat than the fighter just because the druid turned into a T. Rex. We're talking about one character who invested their entire budget on "fighting" and another who took two feats and used a focus point, the latter should never obviate the former.

But in terms of selective realism, it feels like "turning into a T.Rex" should make you much more dangerous than the guy with the cool sword, even if the guy with the cool sword kills T.Rexes with it.

I disagree. PF2 has basically embraced the idea that high level fighters draw on mythological heros like Beowulf. Who once swam in armor for two weeks straight without stopping and slew a dozen sea serpents along the way. Also, unlike the Greek Demigods Beowulf didn't have any connection to a greater power he was just that badass.


Battlecry Playtest: Boots on the Ground wrote:
We’re also closely examining the numbers of the guardian’s Taunt ability, with the hopes of creating something that will really sing.

That does not sound like they're going to make it optional. It implies that enough people are fine with it in the surveys so far that it's not going anywhere.


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There were Mutagens in Howl of the Wild which is a full Remaster Book. They're still item bonuses.


shroudb wrote:

For alchemists we still don't know what they'll choose to do with Mutagens since those should be in PC2 as well.

If they have removed, or at least severly weakned the negative effects from them, then that's maybe ok with them staying at their current proficiency levels, since they will at least have access to a reliable +1 to hit from there, which is about half a proficiency.

Howl of the Wild is a Remaster Book and it has a few mutagens in it. Examining those might tell you what the new expected baseline is.


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WWHsmackdown wrote:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/s/GfNJgYr0Tj

Here you go

Linkified


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Howl of the Wild that released today reminds us that in it's expansion Taldor displaced and took over the ancestral lands of several nonhumans by conquest. One notably being the Centaurs who were driven into Verduran forest.

One thing Eutropa could be doing that would piss of the nobles is attempting diplomatic apologies and reparations to those peoples.

It's also noted that there's an extremist faction among the Verduran Centaurs who utterly depise Taldor and Andoran and are obssessed with revenge. They and other factions like them in cultures with similar circumstances would likely see such any "apology," as a mocking insult and want to return Eutropa's diplomats to her in a pieces. An act the hardliner nobles would likely ruthlessly exploit to undermine her rule.


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Kaliac wrote:

Anyone know what time (and timezone) the PDF actually releases?

It's Wednesday the 22nd for me! But clearly I'm in the wrong timezone.

I believe the PDFs are unlocked manually when the Paizo staff enters the office. I think they open at 10:00 am Pacific Time.


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One initial thought is that the Banner's 30 ft. range is fine for first level but as the monsters get bigger the Commander might run into the same problems Champions have with their reactions at high levels where Huge and Gargantuan creatures take up so much space that it's really hard to stay in formation against them and party members are often out of range. Yes I know there's a 20th level feet to expand it but that's 3 or 4 sessions of playtime at most and the problem pops up much earlier.


One initial thought is that the Banner's 30 ft. range is fine for first level but as the monsters get bigger the Commander might run into the same problems Champions have with their reactions at high levels where Huge and Gargantuan creatures take up so much space that it's really hard to stay in formation against them and party members are often out of range.


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Yeah the E-Book has pretty much eaten the paperback's lunch.


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Alex Speidel wrote:

This blog contains spoilers for the War of Immortals! If you don’t want to know which god dies, click away now!

Seriously, I’m not joking. The god’s icon is like 5 lines down.

Now’s your last chance.

Okay, you’ve been warned!

Well this is a fun case of left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Or in this case the person who created the thumbnail never bothered to read the article.


Spamotron wrote:
My votes on Gorum. One aspect of his lore is that he's fought against or alongside (sometimes both at the same time) pretty much every other deity. He has a connection to everyone and the god of battle dieing would really give a "no god is safe," feeling in universe to the other deitys.

Called it.


My votes on Gorum. One aspect of his lore is that he's fought against or alongside (sometimes both at the same time) pretty much every other deity. He has a connection to everyone and the god of battle dieing would really give a "no god is safe," feeling in universe to the other deitys.


Well Envoy's in SF1E were ironically some of the best heavy weapon users...


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CorvusMask wrote:

Isn't that kinda skipping aside that there aren't arcades or pop bands in eastern mythology either?

Like main thing is that its kinda hard to have mythological feeling and modern feeling co-exist.

Either way, I don't mind them playing magical game, its mostly how modern the whole setup with arcade for youngsters to socialize, play games and buy snackfood feels.

Can't really comment on school life stuff since in nation where national education exists, of course its going to be different from era where it didn't. I imagine school life itself wasn't THAT different from 1940s and 2010s except regarding stuff you do in free time and what they teach. So I'm fine with that tbh. Pop bands themselves are kinda product of entertainment industry in my cynical view at least and hence why it stood out to me.

Remember it's not all of Tian Xia it's Goka.

I suspect they're approaching Tian Xia just like Avistan.

For example if you want classic knights in shining armor fantasy you go to the Shining Kingdoms. If you want gothic horror fantasy you go to the Eye of Dread. If you want gonzo magic you go to the Impossible Lands.

If Goka is too modern for you a different part of Tian Xia will likely fit your tastes better.


The Raven Black wrote:
Calliope5431 wrote:
Sanityfaerie wrote:
Bluemagetim wrote:

Calistria seems likes shes the goddess of paradoxical aloofness.

never forgetting or forgiving a slight means a lot of a persons heart and memory will end up dedicated to holding grudges. It is paradoxical to say dont get too consumed by these and yet always hold on to them at the same time. I would argue if you go by the motto of never forget a slight then you are already consumed.

You've gotten it snarled.

- Callistra is the one that says to never let a slight go unanswered, but not to be consumed by it. If someone slights you, you find a way to make them suffer for it, and then you move on and let it go.

- Arazni is the one that's all about never forgiving those who have hurt you. She's the one who will cling to her hatred of someone until the end of (their) days. She also seems to have a somewhat higher bar for putting someone on the hate-list. It takes more than just a slight.

It's true that trying to follow both at once would probably end badly.

Pretty much.

Though I feel like Calistria has a specific vibe of "letting it go". It's not forgiveness. It's "I've gotten revenge and your life is now ruined, loser. Sucks to be you. I'm going to go to a party and forget all about you ever existing now. If I see you again maybe I'll shoot you if I remember who you are."

Note that Calistria and Arazni share the Last Breath pantheon, together with Milani.

Remember Paizo has already the resolved the issue of Pantheons having potentially hazardous and contradictory Edicts and Anethema by prioritization. A lay follower only needs to follow the Edicts and Anethema of the Pantheon as a whole. A Cleric or Champion picks one deity to be the one that grants their powers and they follow their directives first, then the pantheon's as a whole, then the rest of the gods in said pantheon. So in this case you would decide at character creation wether Arzani or Callistra takes priority and only follow the other's when you reasonably can.


It's interesting that Vesk are +2 Str + 2 Con. Back during the PF2 playtest is was stated (I believe by Mark Seifter but I might be missremembering) that they deliberately avoided creating ancestries with bonuses to two physical or two mental stats because it was felt that would too easily create an "objectively best," ancestry for certain classes.

Given that the blog says this exact same problem happened with SF1 species and they're trying to avoid it now it's worth noting that the former thinking has apparantly changed.


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It's been a while. So lot's of RPG's have spider-people of some sort. Pathfinder notably has Anadi. Have you ever considered that such people are likely to be highly musical?


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Swiftpaws the Maned Wolf wrote:
Also, how would an awakened animal with the half-elf/orc heritage work; just a thought that popped in my head

Mechaninally there's only one Awaken Ritual but the lore of how any given ritual works is flexible. The version of the ritual the Elf or Orc spellcaster used to awaken you used a small piece of their own soul to do it.


We know that Paizo doesn't strive for perfect balance because that's impossible. They just want class options to be within a reasonable bound.

What is the difference in power between a Rune Witch and a Resentment Witch compared to say a Superstition and Dragon Barbarian?


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Ravingdork wrote:
Squiggit wrote:
I don't see why you'd assume batch crafting would also quadruple the rate at which you generate wealth with crafting, or that it would somehow be useless if not given that benefit.

I just assumed that's why there are prep days at all, to balance this against every other method of earning income in the game, which has no downtime at all (pun unintended).

If you force players to Craft items in succession, then slap a "batch" label on it, you're 1) not fooling anyone, and 2) leaving no reason to Craft over using the other earn income options.

I know you're the thread creator but I really think you should split this off into its own thread in Rules Discussion. This has already dominated basically an entire pages worth of posts in the thread and I don't think you want it going on in here for pages more.


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I think a question a GM should ask themselves is if they created a Resentment Witch NPC foe would they require a recall knowledge check to figure out the effect is coming from the familiar?

If the answer is yes, then against a witch PC their creatures should at least spend an action to figure it out too.


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Another reminder. The Devs have also said that in these kinds of threads all they care about is that somebody found the wording confusing enough to ask for errata. As far as they're concered other people posting about why X isn't really errata worthy just crowds the thread and makes the stuff they are actually interested in harder to find. They would much prefer it if such discussion was saved for a different thread entirely.


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A reminder that the Paizo Developers have said that threads like these are a lot more useful to them when people post specific page numbers. Realize they probably worked on the book months ago at this point and don't always remember where everything is.


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As far as I noticed the biggest complaint about the Exemplar is that often even the people who liked its setup turn then power turn playstyle felt that the body and worn Ikons weren't just weaker than the weapon Ikons but highly situational and often irrelevant in many encounters and a waste of actions.

Hopefully the smoothing out the power spikes thing James mentioned includes making them more generally useful.


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My understanding is that Gozreh represents the primal forces that drive a living world and make it habitable. The atmospheric cycle, ocean currents, plate tectonics, stuff like that.

While the Green Faith is all about the living biosphere. Animals, Plants, Bacteria etc.

The Elemental Lords represent the metaphysical elements that the material plane (now Universe in Remaster) is made of.

A sort of heirarchy would go.

The Elements are the substance which worlds are made of. (Elemental Lords) Leads to:

The dynamic forces of an active world that make life possible. (Gozreh) Leads to:

Life itself. (The Green Faith)

Now you would think this would make the Elemental Lords more powerful than Gozreh because they represent something even more fundamental than s/he does. But they're demigods and Gozreh is a full Deity. So you can't necessarily judge how potent a god is by the significance of their portfolio.


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Add another vote to "I want it in the game if the lore is tweaked to make it a more general entertainer/trickster vibe."


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This might be of use to you. Jason Bulmahn one of Paizo's senior designers has his own YouTube channel explicitly for giving advice to new GMs. In this video he walks his friend Dan through designing his first ever PF2 dungeon complete with Boss.


The statement is that this deity's death creates more story opportunties than they currently do alive. In the case of Pharasma, on the one hand having one absolute judge of the dead with jurisdiction over everyone regardless of ancestry, culture, or beliefs is pretty limiting in some ways. On the other hand, how many groups really interact with death and the afterlife in any meaningful fashion other than deciding whether resurrection is allowed or banned in session zero? It's probably not a big number.


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This is a bit of a long video but well worth the time.
Cursed Blades and Dark Swords in Myth and Fantasy
A lot of stuff for an Evil GM in there.


JiCi wrote:

Is there an actual viability of learning all 6 elements? I feel like the Kineticist is far better with 1, 2 or at best 3 elements.

Granted we don't have composite impulses using 3 elements or more, but right now I see no reason to learn all 6 elements unless you want to become a kinetic Alkenstar army knife.

(Apparently, Alkenstar is the Switzerland's equivalent :p )

I'm seeing a lot of two-gate kineticists, that's why I'm asking, because "creating the Avatar" sounds like an obvious choice... until you realize how "master of none" you end up being.

I've done some Kinetecist builds for fun. I haven't had any time to playtest any of them of course but while taking just two or three elements and going for synergies is clearly the stronger build the 6 element build where you just pick independantly good impulses doesn't seem bad and appears it should be perfectly fine in PFS or post Frozen Flame adventure paths. It might struggle at an all optimized high difficulty table but so do a lot of builds that are otherwise fine.


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So there's all kinds of things on the internet that have potential to get a player or GM's mind spinning with ideas. If you find something that made you think "hey I bet I could use that in a game." Post it here.

For the monster homebrewers: What is over a hundred tons, lived in shallow water where even PCs in a non-aquatic campaign could run into it and is carnivorous?

Meet Perucetus Colossus

For PC inspiration and character artists: It's pretty common knowledge that in the time periods that inspired fantasy roleplaying pretty much everyone carried a knife of some kind. Have you put any thought into what kind your character carries?

What does your character's dagger say about them? Eat cheese or die, perhaps?


I think this needs to be spun off into it's own thread in rules discussion. It's also more likely to be seen by a paizo dev that way.