Stack's page

Might be worth assembling an outline with notes for what you are looking for. A number of freelancers do hang out on the boards here (I have done a bit over the years myself).

I would expect the odd one here and there, but any large number would probably have to wait for an equipment-related book.

kaid wrote:

Sanityfaerie wrote:

I'd try to work in Deadly Simplicity, except that there just aren't any gods out there that have favored Weapon: Waffle Iron

I am sure some halfling deity somewhere uses waffle irons as their favored weapon.

I'd be more inclined to say they'd use the waffles as weapons. ;)

Not sure you can make dwarf bread in a waffle iron...

The elemental list raises overlap questions for me. I wonder how many primal spells it gives an arcane caster that they wouldn't have otherwise and how many arcane spells the primal caster wouldn't have had. Most of the spells I spot checked were both arcane and primal already.

It seems to be a definite oversite on the designers to have the Feat allow for four 2nd level tattoos, and there being exactly ZERO tattoos less then 3rd level.

That is POOR writing, making the early levels of the Tattoo artist of ZERO effectiveness. There needs to be SOME remedy for this oversite. Maybe the designer(s) can publish a list of tattoos on the SRD site, or maybe an official way to convert spells to Tattoos.

I expect someone (or multiple someones) wrote the archetype and the tattoo options, then they got split up later in the process for space and other editing reasons. Still not good result though.

I would allow it. Cremate says you add damage when damaging undead. Castigation says you damage fiends as if they were undead. Seems like it transfers.

In this case, I would err on the side of the player. Its a small thing (fiends with fire resistance will basically ignore it anyway and the damage is small regardless unless the target has weakness).

If it comes up enough to be a real issue in your games, you could use a rule similar to Star Saga (probably used other places too) where you can't move diagonally if the two square you go "between" are both blocked.

Michael Sayre wrote:

Stack wrote:

I think there will be siege weapons in Guns and Gears, due out this year. I would assume that the ballista is on the list, but don't know for sure.

Ballista is on the list.

Any spoilers please? ;D I might need this for my caravan homebrew

Spoiler: its shoots big pointy things.

I think there will be siege weapons in Guns and Gears, due out this year. I would assume that the ballista is on the list, but don't know for sure.

Looking forward to seeing how the art comes out.

We just need a feat to raise two shields as an action, one in each hand.

Or you glue a sturdy shield to a spellguard shield. Outer shield takes the hit first. :D

Shifter could pretty easily be an archetype. Druid multiclass runs into a wall since you can't get higher level form feats; an archetype could grant wildshape and the wildshape feats without the delay, maybe toss a few other feats in to round it out.

Stride: you move up to your speed

Movement in encounters: Your movement during encounter mode depends on the actions and other abilities you use. Whether you Stride, Step, Swim, or Climb, the maximum distance you can move is based on your Speed. Certain feats or magic items can grant you other movement types, allowing you to swiftly burrow, climb, fly, or swim

When you stride, you can use any applicable movement speed you possess (or a mixture of them, if appropriate).

I honestly don't know why they didn't make class traits for weapons, the way they did for feats. Give a weapon the Rogue trait, say that rogues are proficient with all weapons with the Rogue trait, and then you're set for life. P1E's unchained monk even did this, really expected it in P2E too.

It would create a long list of traits to add to every weapon and every new class (and Paizo does like making new classes) would require adding a trait to a pile of weapons. Broad categories in the class (simple, martial) are lower word-counts.

The gunslinger, as it is designed, should be a class archetype modifying fighter or just a set of fighter feats. It does nothing that doesn't fit into those frameworks with trivial adjustments.

This won't happen, since Paizo seems committed to making it a stand-alone class regardless.

Part of the issue is that "fighter" covers a great breadth of concepts, but even if you fragmented fighter into discrete functions, I still don't like basing a class on a weapon group. That level of focus should be constrained to archetypes if needed at all.

Arquebuss seems pretty bad for an uncommon, martial weapon. Unsteady is too big of a drawback to what the weapon offers in comparison to the musket. With firearm Ace, you are trading 40ft of Range and 1 + number of hit dice average damage on a crit for what It seems like the worst negative weapon trait yet to be seen.

Taking into consideration that musket is already mediocre, arguably worse than a crossbow, I don't think Arquebuss current state is justifiable.

Rarity shouldn't effect power. Marital weapons should balance against martial weapons regardless of rarity.

Agatha doesn't build one thing and cling to it through her entire career. She is constantly building different machines of all kinds and modifying them on the fly. The inventor we have looks very little like that.

Simple firearms should be on par with other simple weapons, likewise martial with martial. The flintlock is worse than a crossbow unless you crit (d8 crossbow vs d6 flintlock, 120 vs 40 ft range, both reload 1, flintlock gets fatal d10 and versatile B), so it is a garbage weapon unless you are a fighter or gunslinger who crits more often.

Cauterize, blast lock, and other niche utility should either be baked into the class or bundled into a utility feat.

Even adding a strike leaves it as really niche. Seems like it would be really far down the list of things you want to pick up with that feat.

Blue_frog wrote:

It's actually great, because I had a level 10 buffed monk with 50 AC that no mob could ever touch, unless the GM would make monsters with unbelievable mods to hit-

With a +6 Dex and +6 Wis, that's a 22. A +5 ring and +5 amulet makes a 32. Bracers of armor +5 would make a 37. That's 13 points of buffs to get to 50 from there.

A +4 from ki for one round, and total defense would make 45.

Would be interested to see the build on that.

Fighting defensively or total defense? Crane Style, Crane Wing, maybe a trait? That will get closer.

Stack wrote:

But if you have point blank shot, you could be using a short bow and be getting a +2 circumstance bonus in the first range increment, which is 60 feet. 60 feet covers a lot of combats and +2 gets more hits and more crits to compensate for the smaller damage die.

+2 circumstance bonus to damage rolls, not to hit.

That means that shortbows would do better damage when it does not have a striking rune.

Same damage than Longbows with Striking.

And then less damage than Longbows when you are with Greater Striking.

Wow. Totally botched my reading check.

Should have looked twice; +2 to hit would be unusual in this system.

Arachnofiend wrote:

Even in open space wilderness a lot of fights are going to begin in melee range

Oh sure, volley is going to suck sometimes: spending the majority of time outside just makes it more likely to be at range or be able to maneuver there. It's a LOT more likely than winding catacombs or urban alleys.

One way to make the longbow usable would be to go Archer Dedication then Point-Blank Shot. Even Archer Dedication isn't a dead feat as it gives access to the critical specialization effect with bows at 11th.

But if you have point blank shot, you could be using a short bow and be getting a +2 circumstance bonus in the first range increment, which is 60 feet. 60 feet covers a lot of combats and +2 gets more hits and more crits to compensate for the smaller damage die.

The fact that several classes start with the Shield Block feat does not obligate them to use it, nor does it mean that they are "wasting" it by not doing so.

The Shield Block feat essentially replaced Shield Proficiency- its no less optional than any of the other weapon or armor proficiencies you choose not to utilize.

Which is to say, its absolutely totally optional.

From a class design perspective, giving shield block as part of the class does carry a cost, so not using it is 'wasting' a portion of your classes assigned abilities. Nothing is really free. If shield block didn't have some design value attached to it, it would be a built-in function of shields rather than a feat. Maybe a given person doesn't care and maybe the designers assigned a low value to it in class design and balance considerations, but it is a non-zero value.

I hope that eventual class archetypes give options to trade it out (same with heavy/medium armor on DEX fighters, etc.).

Obviously you keep a special shield in one hand and a sturdy shield in the other.

Which is idiotic looking.

Archer fighter seems easy; ditch armor proficiency about light and lost shield block to get...anything.

Curios what scale the minis will be in; if they are similar to the PF Deep Cuts minis, they could be useful for several games.

As for the game itself, there are a lot of board games out there; have to see what they come up with.

Sounds interesting. Can't wait for more information.

First Hero Quest returns and now this.

I still have HeroQuest and play it, but there have been a lot of dungeoncrawler board games since then. HeroQuest, I expect, funded mostly on nostalgia rather than being competitive with more modern competition.

Coming from the much larger board game world, I don't know any main-stream board game that uses d20s. Literally the only people I know that have ever seen a d20 are tabletop RPG gamers, and they're a niche group here. Or board gamers who see them lying around in the RPG...

Frostgrave, Ghost Archipelago, and Rangers of Shadowdeep use a d20 as a core mechanic. All by the same author using the same base mechanical framework and would be considered 'indie' games, though Frostgrave is a big fish in a small pond.

Heroscape hasn't been in print for years, but used a d20 for initiative and special abilities. It was widely available in non-gaming stores (Walmart carried it, for example) so was relatively mainstream (as main stream as a miniatures skirmish game gets), though used custom d6 for most combat resolution.

Because it's the only Stance that lets you dump dexterity to 10 at level 1. That is mechanically powerful.

I wouldn't call it that powerful. You are spending a class feat to get heavy armor that you have to activate with an action every fight. Building for it also locks you out of most combat uses for every other stance. Hope you don't get attacked before you get it started either; no Dex and no armor means crits.

I think the restriction is fluff. Fluff that makes an interesting build choice a headache.

I would tend to allow the player to forgoe some damage bonuses to reduce the risk of an accidental kill, pulling their punch.

"The object familiar has no Speeds and must select a Speed familiar ability before it can move, coming to life in a way appropriate to the chosen Speed and using the statistics of a normal familiar for that day."

A precise reading of this makes it seem that the item familiar does not use statistics of a familiar unless you select a speed familiar ability, meaning the answer changes depending on familiar abilities.

So RAW, it either acts like an item or uses the normal familiar statistics depending on abilities.

I doubt this was intended, but I cannot glean intent from what we have. Hopefully it will receive errata. The tradition of spotty editing in secondary books continues.

Stack wrote:

Hmm, animated heavy crossbow, you command it to load (1 action) and it does (2 minion actions). So we just need a crossbow familiar option.

It's already an option: be a witch with baba yaga as your patron and make your heavy crossbow your familiar: then command it to reload itself.

That occurred to me, but the patron rules for Baba Yaga are not sufficiently specific to assume that doing so would be commonly allowed.

Hmm, animated heavy crossbow, you command it to load (1 action) and it does (2 minion actions). So we just need a crossbow familiar option.

Uh no. I dont want "40 feats over the course of 20 levels" I want base line customization. Not simply "options spread out over the course of time"

Sorry, this is the PF2 board. You must be looking for some other system.

With the focus on the eidolon, a summoner that actually summons should just be a different class. By the time you swap out all the eidolon stuff with a class archetype, you are basically there.

I want the summoner and eidolon to work together, acting dynamically to support and set the other up. Right now, the eidolon is a second-rate beatstick and the summoner hides and heals/buffs from a safe spot. Your 4 spells don't go very far (best case is probably dropping good battlefield control once per fight).

Let the eidolon open an enemy up to the summoner's spells, let the summoner be able to survive staying close to the eidolon. Look at 1st ed. teamwork feats as a start, but give each body something to do with its actions that is worth doing each turn (beyond "okay, you get a damage bonus).

Frankly, if a class is called 'summoner', I would rather it actually focus on summoning, but for the eidoloniturge class we have, lean in to the tandem nature. If that means no built-in high-level spells, fine.

Not sure how much of an exploit it is to repeatedly get yourself knocked out. Unless I missed a special rule for the summoner, each time you hit 0, you go to dying X, and each time you get back up, you get wounded +1, making actually dying that much easier next time. Sure, you are in a presumably more convenient location, but not something I would lean into.

The option to deliver stored spells via trip/disarm/grapple/shove could open up a different playstyle for the magus. Keying striking spell off the attack trait rather then Strike would do this, but may have unintended consequences.

Obviously the class has more important issues to be sorted out, but it occurred to me that a shield based path would be nice. You can fake it now (shields with a boss or spikes are 1-handed weapons, archetyping into everstand stance would make a shield 2-handed), but a path to work raising shield into your action economy and allowing you to deliver a spell when you shield block would be cool.

Michael Sayre designer credit noted.

Magus Potency and Runic Impression are situational bandaids for when you don't have an appropriate weapon for the situation, you shouldn't be relying on them as replacements for a level-appropriate magic weapon.

Best use I can think of for them is to do an end-around the ridiculous pricing on high-level special materials. Turn your cheap silver sword into +X Striking when you need to fight a silver-vulnerable enemy. Runic impression still keeps rune limits, so is less useful for that application.

In my reading of standby spell, it is unclear if you can freely heighten the standby spell to cast it from any slot you have available. Nothing prohibits it, but a few words to clarify would probably save questions later.

The daikyu is a mistake, one way or another. It is flatly inferior to martial weapon options as an advanced weapon. Your proficiency will be behind your martial weapon prof, wiping out the advantage from lacking volley. Hopefully errata will clear it up, but currently it is useless.

Congratulations from your old 3pp buddy. I knew Michael waaay back during the Akashic Mysteries playtest. He keeps moving up!

Jalmeri Heavenseeker dedication (from the new AP) gives a great use for a spare action. For 1 action, you can add half your level each in electricity and sonic damage to unarmed strikes and monk weapons. Since monastic archer lets you add unarmed stuff to your bow, it should work.

Or not. Monastic Archer specifies Monk feats and abilities. So you would need a bow with the monk trait. Which...don't exist yet.

Can you be a full time animal as a Druid similar to a Feral Druid in World of Warcraft, or are you a caster class first and foremost that can sometimes turn into an animal but animals don’t scale like martials so it’s not really viable?

The feats to remain in animal form do reduce the spell level of the spell you are copying for the transformation. Form Control at 4th and perfect form control at 18th.

The battle forms are not as good of martials as dedicated martials, but in my understanding they are viable for use. Don't expect to replace a fighter or champion, but you can fight as a secondary melee.

edit:
A wild druid start with wild shape copying pest form, which can't fight but has a 10 minute duration. All other forms have a 1 minute default duration.

Form control let's you increase the duration to 1 hour, but reduces the spell level by 2. This means that until 7th character level, it only works for pest form. At 7th character level, it works for animal form, but only as a second level spell, which is going to be well behind the curve. At 18th level, perfect form control makes the duration permanent, but keeps the -2 spell level penalty.

Sounds like we already have an elephandom.

Stack wrote:

Cintra Bristol wrote:

What? No Heffalumps?

Only if we also get woozles.

Minitaurs are cuter.

Minitaurs...excuse me while I go write up an ancestry.

What? No Heffalumps?

Only if we also get woozles.

And the ability to summon both as part of a musical number.