pg. 122 and pg. 123 The adult Mirage Dragon's captivating display is 1 action but when it ages to ancient it becomes 2 actions.
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I would love to post my party's composition now that we are aimed to start this Wednesday! Mikazuki Kimura (female kitsune animist): Born into Willowshore, her family is a pair of refugees who fled the genocide of their people in Hwangott. Taking on their family tradition of magic and herbalism they operate a small supply shop on the south side of town. When the Lung Wa empire broke, her father left for their homeland to see what had come of it, he has not returned since. Yang Zhao (female dhampir thaumaturge): A woman with some complicated heritage who lives in Willowshore with their extended family. They run a shop which outfits assistive devices to residents of the town, particularly to loggers and other laborers. Bora Kang (female nephilim champion): A woman with a sufficiently mysterious past. Was whisked away by a stranger as a teenager only to return to the town a year ago without nary a word of where she went. Currently working as a clerk for the Thrice Blessed Inn. Koharu Homura (female hungerseed nagaji psychic): Dwelling on the outskirts, Koharu rarely comes into town other than for business or to visit her friend at the wizard's tower. Some whisper of a malevolent influence in her blood or her uncontrollable powers.
My group is just completing this campaign (maybe 2 sessions left) and as the GM I gotta say I would have LOVED having an ash oracle in the party. We had a bones oracle and it still worked out great. The only advice I would have for you is careful of the amount of fire immune enemies in this AP. They are plentiful, especially in the later books. Ask your GM if they plan on "bastion-ing" the golems so that you will be more useful too.
My group came from 5e a number of years ago (and for the most part, haven't looked back) and the thing we were the most apprehensive about but ended up loving was Spellcasting. At first glance we were nervous coming from a system where spellcasting rules in every sense of the power game but were willing to give it a shot. I know that Vancian casting isn't exactly beloved by all, but our group loves so much of it. It closed the distance between prepared and spontaneous casters and lacked any concentration mechanic.
In case the GM ends up forcing the locked door open you may want to apply a Lock spell to your lock. This makes athletics and thievery attempts roll against your spell DC or the lock's modifier +4. If you keep using this strat it will scale well as you level and you can even buy a wand of it for daily application.
Quick shout out to Inventor's Construct Companion which can be kept up in accuracy with Lock on if needed but truly shines in its breadth of immunities. Some of the biggest problems animal companions have at higher level are helped when the companion is immune to bleed, death effects, disease, doomed, drained, fatigued, ect...
Also since it can be healed with quick repair, damage dealt to it often takes seconds to repair. Should the worst happen you get your main feature back after only 1 day of downtime.
I also viewed it as giving the players access to undead companions. Though, now that I think about it. You probably could get away with giving every player the Pet general feat with their desired pet being undead if you wanted to reward everyone equally.
I have always been very fond of the term "late‑blooming" found in the knights of lastwall book to describe trans people. It feels very poetic.
This is by far my favourite prophecy so far but I am a huge fan of Urgathoa, undeath, and Geb in the setting. To me, Urgathoa's death triggering something like a mass zombie apocalypse isn't too far from Asmodeus's wound or Cayden's false divinity. Urgathoa afterall was the first creature to spontaneously, with force of will, come back from the dead. Her death relinquishing that ability from her domain and into every death seems very poetic. An infection, if you will, spreading from her corpse onto the notion of death itself. Wonderful story.
Huzzah!! My favourite deity is safe! Now I can watch the rest of these with amusement.
The book makes it clear that a key facet of Twined Stories is that performances take place on both the Material and Ethereal planes. Multiple references are made to this applying to The Winnowing of Gachanta. The climax of Act III is said to split the party between the Material and Ethereal planes...but nowhere is there any explanation of how this is to be achieved, unless half the party just happens to be capable of going Ethereal on their own. Am I missing something? Well besides the obvious...deaths that can occur to allow players to exist on the ethereal stage. Just before the play, the wardrobe department gives the players a Phantom Shroud which can be used once per day to cast Ethereal Jaunt. Due to the mechanics of PF2e I gather only 1 is provided for loot purposes but I suppose you could give out more to get a perfect split.
Just because I am seeing it brought up in terms of Kineticist effectiveness and damage. Golem anti-magic is going away in the remaster, replaced by resistance to spell damage except one damage type (if we look at the brass bastion its spell resistance is equal to physical resistance). This means that all of kineticist non-damage impulses will work against them and your damage impulses will be working against a resistance which you may be able to remove with extract element for stone/metal kineticists. You can find the information about golems in January's Paizo Live While this doesn't retcon the previous appearance of golems in APs (I run Age of Ashes and if I see another one I may just keel over)I don't think its much of an ask to replace the golem with the bastion equivalent when it comes out. I've already posted about my enjoyment as a Kineticist in this thread so I'll just add that I'm still having a great time when I get the chance to play mine in PFS lol.
THANK you, now I just need to tide myself over until August!
I could have sworn at one point I had found a map of the crimson citadel and the chambers below it. It described some information about the red mantis and their leader. It wasn't terribly detailed, it was a side portrait of the underground complex. For the life of me I can't find it again and the recent news of a Red Mantis Adventure has me so excited. Did I make this up in my head?
Oh wow this is so exciting!! I wonder if Mark of the Mantis would make a good pre-shot with this before you jump into the future with your characters more experienced, taking on more dangerous jobs. I really enjoyed the one-shot and I am vibrating in my seat for the chance to get my hands on this. Is this likely to get a Foundry VTT module? I am unsure if standalone adventures have in the past.
I'm really hoping for more information regarding the deities of Tian Xia, their place in its culture and more of their portfolios.
Also please please please more info on Hwanggot and the Chang Liao Jungle just for me please. As a treat.
I thought that it would be pertinent to add in here that bombs no longer deal their splash damage on a failure, or at least they may not. In Player Core bombs are describe with the following. Alchemical bombs are consumable weapons that deal damage or produce special effects, and they sometimes deal splash damage. You throw a bomb as a ranged Strike. It’s a martial ranged weapon with a range increment of 20 feet and can’t benefit from runes since it’s a consumable. A bomb deals any listed splash damage to the target on a failure, success, or critical success, and to all other creatures within 5 feet of the target on a success or critical success. Add the damage together before applying resistance or weakness, and don’t multiply splash damage on a critical hit. Notably this isn't the same case in GM core. Most bombs also have the splash trait. When you use a thrown weapon with the splash trait, you don’t add your Strength modifier to the damage roll. If an attack with a splash weapon fails, succeeds, or critically succeeds, all creatures within 5 feet of the target (including the target) take the listed splash damage. On a critical failure, the bomb misses entirely, dealing no damage. Add splash damage together with the initial damage against the target before applying the target’s resistance or weakness. You don’t multiply splash damage on a critical hit. Just thought it may be worth considering as GM core contains other text that wasn't updated and personally this vastly changes the balance/power budget of the bomber alchemist. Especially for triggering weaknesses.
I play a wood/earth Kineticist (Level 5) in society and it kicks ass. In combat as everyone said above its always a good time. I run weapon infusion which means I can engage no matter what range the enemy is which has mattered in every combat I've fought in. The area of effect is nice with hail of splinters and tumbling logs, I have heavy armor to tank with armor in earth, my impulse junction gives me 5 temp hp for breathing. In combat its a SOLID class and next level I get some amazing area control with the jagged berms composite impulse. Somehow I forgot to mention Tree Sentinel which deletes 30 damage on the board each round I use it. Outside of combat I've invested in fresh produce for some healing and nature/athletics for my two major skills. Athletics is pretty consistently useful as a Str kineticist but I'm not super useful in exploration. My nature expertise does make me feel decent at RK in certain environments through. Along with survival when its necessary. Also thanks to this being society I have a hireling to talk for me when Im forced to make a diplomacy check. Overall in combat is a helluva time, probably my favourite class in the game. Outside of combat you are about as useful as a barbarian or fighter. You can contribute if you're in a scenario built to your niche but otherwise, kick back a little and share the spotlight.
I recently homebrewed daze to be a 2d4 cantrip scaling 1d4 each level instead of every other. Turning the stunned 1 crit fail into off-guard. Its much closer to frostbite in power now with less range and non lethal damage. It shot to the top of all the divine player’s spell lists and we are having a blast with it.
Do you also verify that the players own the rights to use any non-AI-generated artwork that they bring? Its not really about rights :-) Its more like if they use an artist's art I could (theoretically) tell from a signature or otherwise who made it. I am aware that a ton of people use uncredited art, I have no problem (in general) with it. But at least I know its art from a person who could be credited with its creation. Whereas AI just takes its data from a bunch of different people with little chance for credit.I'm not really here to police art. Just finding my own boundaries with the tech and was wondering if paizo had something similar. Also recounting an uncomfortable experience a new player was having. The fact they don't is also fine! It would be impossible to enforce anyways lmao. Oh just incase I wasn't clear before, I wouldn't force anyone to change their token/portrait either. I would ask them (and hope they ablige to the table rules) but its not really the end of the world if they don't.
Personally my line is drawn at my own material. I strictly don't use AI art in my games, images, or tokens. There's always a chance I use it by accident for sure! But its the conscious effort not to that I feel is important.
At the end of the day its not possible to do anything definitively but just kind of what feels right.
Thank you everyone so far for responding! I'm not sure I want to share the images (to spare my friend's privacy incase this somehow was lead back to them) but most are blatantly AI generated. Tbc I am all for GMs using images in-between maps from sourcebooks, dnd, pintrest what have you. Thank you Hammerjack for giving me that info. Its reasonable that GMs can do what they want and it'll be up to each group to figure out what they're comfortable with. I actually didn't know there was an AI art foundry importer! That may be a common source. I don't know if that's what this GM was using but it seems likely enough.
Good morning everyone!
To be clear this is not about AI art in paizo's products but at organized play tables used by players and GMs.
Just played a session of agents of Edgewatch with the remastered rogue and Gang Up is ridiculously broken in the best way. The ruffian rogue with a reach weapon effectively made the entire cohort of enemies that surrounded us, off-guard. Of course this made them all try to focus him down much to the enjoyment of the shield of reckoning, quick block paladin. That feat is such a great pickup on any rogue and I personally feel like it can really help with the "team tactics" push of 2e.
The 3 modes of play and especially exploration was one of the determining factors in piquing my interest to even start playing pathfinder. Equally as important to the 3 action system. Having a mechanical structure to ask my players what they are doing after combat gets the thoughts flowing. Great to see a blog about it for new players.
In the meantime if you wanted the manor to have an impact before PCs can get their hands on that type of magic you could make the Manor into a garden presented in Treasure Vault. Producing any sorts of delicious alchemicals as food products after partnering with Berline. Or perhaps making spell scrolls out of flayed flesh after making friends with the Kuthunites. A magic mailbox could get them their temporary items which crumble into dust at midnight. The magical conduit could even lead into more magical applications like the teleportation viscera portal mentioned by rokeca!
It won't be. I actually had the privilege of asking the organize play coordinator this at paizocon this year. Bloodlords joins the ranks of Agents of Edgewatch and Hell's Vengeance as not sanctioned APs. The three share similar content that paizo simply would not want to be seen just being played in the average game store as someone's first exposure to pathfinder. While I definitely think there are tons of ways that GMs can slightly tweak the campaign to be less gruesome and the start isn't incredibly violent. I think its reasonable to not want it run with every game store, especially when you can't vet every GM that comes through. A particularly uncomfortable situation from book 6 comes to mind but the general vibes reign throughout. Bloodlords 6 spoilers: In Ghost King's Revenge the players are given the opportunity to defeat a group of firebrands and recapture a group of escaped "forced laborers". While this is certainly not the norm in the adventure it isn't exactly an outlier and the tone these events set probably led to its exclusion from sanctioning.
Alchemical bombs are referred to as martial ranged weapons in Player Core and martial thrown weapons in GM Core. Along with a few other weird clashes in wording. Alchemical bombs are consumable weapons that deal damage or produce special effects, and they sometimes deal splash damage. You throw a bomb as a ranged Strike. It’s a martial ranged weapon with a range increment of 20 feet and can’t benefit from runes since it’s a consumable. A bomb deals any listed splash damage to the target on a failure, success, or critical success, and to all other creatures within 5 feet of the target on a success or critical success. Add the damage together before applying resistance or weakness, and don’t multiply splash damage on a critical hit. Bombs are martial thrown weapons with a range increment of 20 feet. When you throw a bomb, you make a weapon attack roll against the target’s AC, as you would for any other weapon. It takes one hand to draw, prepare, and throw a bomb. The bomb is activated when thrown as a Strike—you don’t have to activate it separately. As consumables, bombs can’t have runes etched onto them, have talismans attached to them, or benefit from runes granted in other ways (such as from spells or from items that replicate runes from other items). Spells and magic items that give you a bonus to all your attacks (or to all thrown weapons, for example) can still apply to them.
Precisely! As a matter of fact, before I would often target the beefy frontlines with the grab since that meant I had an easier time chunking through their higher AC with that flat-footed condition. Another thing I forgot to mention was just the cumbersomeness of several roles. I loved the snappiness of automatic maneuvers. The best case scenario for these new rules is when facing multiple lower level enemies who now have a much lower chance to now automatically grab you and have a good chance to whiff. But now as a GM I have to roll for all these enemies, slowing down game time (something I personally try to avoid like the plague). More soapboxing but this also really hurts summons whos biggest utility was using things like grab, knockdown, and shove. Now their modifier, despite being nice for their level compared to PCs, probably wont match up being on average -4 level compared to the enemies. I had more grievances with this than I remembered apparently haha.
So... what is even the point of Remastered Grab, then? If you still have to roll, and you still have to spend an action, then how is it any better than a standard grapple check? It doesnt take multiple attack penalty. In my example the Corpseroot would make a root attack against you for an action then a grab (grapple) check with no MAP. This works even if the root attack was a -5 root strike. No MAP on the grapple attempt either way.
My least favorite change about the remaster is enemies rolling to grapple with grab. We played with this rule for 1 or two sessions before a caster got perma-restrained with nearly no chance of escape before going back to the old ones. I can appreciate what they were going for but enemies who were designed to grapple (and thus have grab) are probably still going to grapple a frontliner and are likely now to restrain backliners. By being able to roll monsters now have a chance to crit with their free attempt of grapple. Previously it was an automatic success. What I meant by no chance of escape is that the caster got restrained and unless they rolled decently high (10-15% chance) they couldnt get out of it. Let me see if I can show a bit of math. A corpseroot against an average caster with 18 Con (assuming they started with 14 and pumped it at every opportunity). A pretty average scenario says the caster is level 10 and the corpse root is not elite or weak so is level 11 (a +1 monster). Most casters at this point have expert fortitude saves putting their DC at around 28 (10+14 Prof+ 4 Con).
This scenario to me is far worse then getting automatically grappled. Its further exacerbated against higher level enemies and bosses but I wanted to be more charitable since I know thats not the every day scenario. I dont think its crazy unbalanced but simply a change that I dont like and won't be carrying on at my table. For context my table(s) is playing through AOA, AOE, EC, and SOT some APs where +1 or higher enemies are abundant and common. Having read through Bloodlords its much of the same for many parts.
I have a request
Would it be possible to have the Baba Yaga patron use the Silence in the Snow familiar ability until any rare patrons are given bespoke familiar abilities? Creating a patch of ice around your familiar. I feel like the winter/snow theme is already very tied thematically to Baba Yaga as chilling cold and lesson of the frozen queen are both tied to her as well. It would be a quality of life buff to a small minority of players but one that would be very appreciated for a fun option.
It was recently revealed by Avi Henriques on blue sky that Lamashtu has new anathema! Old attempt to treat a mental illness or deformity, provide succor to Lamashtu’s enemies New attempt to change what makes you different, provide succor to Lamashtu's enemies. They go on to mention that they wanted to "Disentangle the idea that disability itself was monstrous and instead focusing on her embracing those who revel in being different". Honestly this is a huge relief to me personally. Lamashtu has always been one of my favorite deities. But as someone who struggles with disability in its many forms, it always felt gross to make any character with that anathema. I am uninformed whether she requires unholy sanctification (its likely she does) but for mundane worshippers of her I gather this change will be much appreciated.
Anyone else have any particularly uncomfortable anathema like this that could benefit from some change? Thoughts on Lamashtu's new anathema?
Also I'm not sure if vampires only turning their own ancestries into vampires is a thing anymore. I can think of at least 1 example in bloodlords where a halfling is turned into a vampire by a human. Not to mention that as paizo grows and so do the scope of their stories. I'm sure they will feel emboldened to try weird/cooler things like vampire tengu/kitsune. Its small note but its helpful to remember that so called "absolute truths" about the setting exist only as long as they serve the writers and the stories they want to tell.
If you played a universalist wizard, I'm pretty sure all the remaster has been is a big buff? You get a free focus spell at level 1 (hand of the apprentice is incredibly fun) in addition to your free wizard feat. Your advanced school spell is now unique and while I wouldn't say its good I will say its cool and memorable. Yoinking an enemy's spell then casting it back at them is hilarious. My least favorite change about the remaster is enemies rolling to grapple with grab. We played with this rule for 1 or two sessions before a caster got perma-restrained with nearly no chance of escape before going back to the old ones. I can appreciate what they were going for but enemies who were designed to grapple (and thus have grab) are probably still going to grapple a frontliner and are likely now to restrain backliners.
No cost too great,
would be really funny if the title was a reference to hollow knight haha. Cant wait for this book to come out.
This conversation is interesting because I have never run scrolls as parchment you need to read. I have always thought that scrolls basically had magical instructions written into the parchment and by pushing magic through it it "runs" the instructions and creates the effect. Kind of like the scroll being a macro, the writing being the code, and the caster just needing to execute it by pushing magic through.
The book goes out of its way to really hammer home that she is a necromancer. Information from the travel guide tells us that creating undead is punishable by fifty lashes, 3 to 10 years of hard labor, and/or a fine. When you fight her she has some animated skeletons by her and she used necromancy to extract secrets from the dead below the citadel. But honestly it isn't unreasonable to want more than that imo. If you wanted a personal reason I would have her kill and animate an NPC the PCs have met before in a desperate play for more protection after hearing about the PC's success.
Paizo has figured out that if they keep printing adventures about orcs I'm just going to have to keep buying them. Time to run another adventure!
Sad to see such a talented and wonderful person pass away. I hope that all of her loved ones get through this difficult time. The harrow deck is one of my partner's favorite parts of Golarion and has made a special impact at our tables.
Is there some way to negate this penalty? I know you can move at full speed prone, but if you could also negate the attack and AC penalty you could arm yourself with dual katars and be Voldo.But to continue questionable tactics development, Grapple attempts aren't penalized while prone! Could make you an extra tempting target, haha. There is! But its still a pretty niche option. The Zombie archetype has a feat called ankle biter which treats you as always taking cover against ranged attacks while prone (effectively negating the penalty from being prone) and ignores the penalty to your attacks rolls. It also has some nice bonuses like a bonus to trip which as stated in this thread isnt affected by the prone penalty. And allows you to move further while crawling. Now of course its a rare archetype and you still are vulnerable to melee enemies but if you wanted to make a fun ground crawling build that would be the place to start.
I would love to see the feat structure stay around for a PF3. That is class feats, skill feats, ancestry feats, and general feats. Maybe they could tweak around with the balance a little bit or frequency you get them. But the feat system allowing you to "slot" in different abilities and customize your character at such a small level feels really cool. Its the main reason I think why two characters of the same class (or even same subclass) can feel so different.
I've played all my classes in PFS RAW (including kineticist) and its been one of the best play experiences I've had in tabletop gaming! Honestly the past year of releases has been probably some of the best books paizo has released in my opinion.
I've played in a few PFS games and so far the GMs have been kind enough to let me walk around in my armor when I'm expecting combat. I feel like tree of duality is a nice impulse but definitely has some stiff competition. I think it finds its home the best with someone going a build to capitalize on ravel of thorns. The aoe difficult+hostile terrain will make it hard for enemies to leave the tree's aura and the dazzle will complement your tankiness. Especially nice that its not overflow. Personally I cannot wait for my Wood/Earth kineticist to get jagged berms. That's some next level area denial.
Is this how it will be with Animist, out of curiousity? I believe it was stated that this will be the case with animist and all casting in the remaster.
I thought it would be wise to create new thread rather then flood the playtest ones but there has been some exciting news! The new animist (and all spellcasters in the remaster) no longer have spellcasting proficiency tied to traditions (arcane, occult, primal ect…). Instead there is only one universal “spell proficiency”. The modifiers still change depending on your class (clerics still use WIS, sorcs use CHA) however if you gain spellcasting from other sources (like multiclass dedications) you will always use your universally applicable “spellcasting proficiency”. Would love to hear the community’s thoughts on this. Personally, I am stoked as I think this really opens up a lot of options for multiclassing like wizard getting more use out of the psychic dedication. Of course you’re still going to want to line up main attributes too I’m guessing witch, psychic, and sorcerer are going to be very high value going forward.
Held objects and hazards typically have broken thresholds. Structures like walls or beams typically only have HP and hardness. You can see that with spells that create structures like wall of stone or force. Jagged Berms is more like a structure then an object so it will be destroyed at 0Hp but won’t become broken before that.
Heres some decent items to spec for a kineticist looking to spend gold beyond consumables. Bloodhound Mask- Imprecise scent for when it matters
Earplugs, Airbladders, Brass Ears, Grappling Hooks and Crowbars are also useful mundane items to keep around.
Despite its pitfalls I still like Elemental Barbarian with Wood Kineticist dedication. Early game it gets a decent ranged attack based on your Con (which can scale if you invest in it) but the real pickups here are tree sentinel and ravel of thorns. Being able to use tree sentinel to shore up your own survivability and ravel of thorns in combination with attack of opportunity to make yourself a sticky target. Barbarian has such a decent damage chassis that adding in extra utility just feels good to me. Especially since unlike other strong archetypes like champion, you dont need to split your ability boosts between anything else but STR and CON.
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