Tender Tendrils's page

I had high hopes that action was being taken to protect trans people on these forums when the blog post about not tolerating transphobia was made.

Months later, I can see that it was mostly just talk and a token effort. Users who constantly make thinly veiled dog whistles about issues affecting vulnerable communities, and who are constantly antagonistic towards trans people, including making threatening lists of most of the major active openly trans people on the forums on their profile pages, are still here, and their hate speech has not been reigned in - they just have to thinly veil it.

People are still permitted to turn the thread attached to every "day of visibility" blog post into a debate on whether the relevant group of people deserve to be visible.

The list user I mention had their list removed by moderation (after I complained via email), but has re-added the list to their profile, just with my username and the context removed.

They will probably claim that it is a coincidence that the list of people they don't like overlaps almost completely with the active openly trans users on these forums.

Users that where banned for being openly transphobic or other reasons keep returning with dummy accounts, some of which are allowed to operate despite being pretty obvious about who they are.

Other users have been permitted to spend weeks fiercely debating the de-emphasis of slavery in the game, because apparently slavery being de-emphasized is something that is actually a deal-breaker for them.

Multiple trans users, and users from (or who are supportive of) various vulnerable communities have left these forums because of the toxic environment here. I am following suit. I probably won't be back, and I definitely won't be participating in pathfinder infinite (which I had been planning on releasing content on). I had thought about raising this privately in an email, but I have reason to believe anything posted privately will just be buried, because any trust I had is gone. We were told that the new Director of Community would protect certain users from moderation, and it seems that those warnings where correct.

When any minority feels like it is unsafe to be in a space, that space loses irreplaceable voices, and when bigots are permitted to get away with making one minority feel unsafe, all bigots are emboldened to make everyone else unsafe.

As a trans person, I just can't be on these forums anymore. I used to love it here, as I love talking about the game that I am so passionate about and found the discussions on how to play the game very useful. But now it is a massive drain on my energy and harmful to my mental health. Now the forums are a place that causes me anxiety attacks, and writing this final post has me on the verge of a panic attack*.

I have to fight the urge to end this with an apology for making a fuss or being dramatic - the fuss is justified, the feelings I am having valid. So instead I will just say that I hope that people at Paizo take notice of what I am trying to say, so that they can maybe stem the flight of LGBT people from the forums (and the company itself) by making the forums (and the company itself) a safer place, which can only be beneficial to Paizo and the community they claim to care about.

*Don't worry about me, I will be fine, I am resilient and have gotten very good at dealing with my mental health. Unfortunately, dealing with my mental health at this point means leaving these forums, which used to be a boon to my mental health.

This is a relatively minor thing, but it has been a minor pet peeve of mine for a while and I think it is something to keep in mind when creating threads.

So, when you are creating a thread where you want to discuss like, a rules or balance thing and etcetera, how you frame the question you want people to discuss can actually have a big effect on how and if people participate.

Mostly, I am talking about conclusions dressed up as a question.

Stuff like "Wizards - are they the best class?"
or
"Flumphs - intentionally overpowered?"

(I'm avoiding real examples to avoid people feeling singled out).

The problem with those two examples is that while phrased as a question, they are phrased in such a way that they contain the answer that my biases wants, and frames anyone who disagrees with that answer as being combative.

The second example doubles down on including conclusions, and is the most egregious - it skips past the discussion of whether flumphs are overpowered to the question of whether them being overpowered is intentional or not.

A better way to phrase those questions would be;

"What do you think is the best class?"
or
"Where do you think Flumphs sit on the power scale?"

You can still include your opinion in the thread - put in the neutral title and the neutral version of the question in the post, then do like a "P.S, my personal opinion is that wizards are the best class, but I made this thread because I am eager to hear people's opinions on what the best class is".

I think that phrasing questions in a more open/neutral way rather than using language that biases the question makes for much healthier and more robust discussion (when the discussion is ostensibly meant to be a question.

For a bonus content - a bad thread title for this thread would have been "Leading Thread Titles - are people intentionally making biased threads?"

So, I have been putting together the house rules and rules variants I want to use in my next campaign, and thought people might be interested in what I use and the variations/combinations I apply, so here they are.

I use a weird frankenstein of some of the variant rules from the gamemastery guide.

Alignment Variant
This is my variation of the Extreme Good and Evil Alignment variant.

In this variant, some creatures exemplify the concepts of extreme good and evil by their very nature. Only fiends, celestials, and other residents of aligned Outer Sphere planes have an alignment. Remove most alignment restrictions— such as the cleric and champion restrictions—but not ones related to those extraplanar creatures. Replace the removed restrictions with appropriate anathema if necessary. Additionally, the following creature types have alignments, though unlike other aligned creatures, they only have a single alignment trait;
Aberrations - Aberrations are violations of the natural law, and hence have the Chaotic alignment trait.
Constructs - Constructs are finely tuned creatures of logic, and hence have the Lawful trait
Undead - Undead (with the exception of some spirits) are malicious abominations, and hence have the Evil trait.

Champions, clerics, divine oracles, divine sorcerers, divine summoners, and divine witches gain the following class feature at level 1 to compensate for most enemies no longer having alignment traits making their aligned damage less useful (especially for good aligned divine characters - 90% of the creatures you fight as say, a tenets of good champion, have the evil trait, so I wanted to add something to compensate for losing that)

(This is a rough draft of the ability, I haven't finished writing it yet)

Divine Energy (placeholder name)
The divine energy of your deity infuses your attacks. Whenever one of your abilities, attacks, or spells that can do alignment damage of the same type as one of the alignments of your deity to a creature with no opposing alignment traits, the effect does a different damage type instead. This damage type is determined by your deity. Most deities have a single damage type for their Divine Energy. For example, Sarenrae's Divine Energy is fire, while Pharasma's Divine Energy if Force. If the effect deals damage using a damage die, reduce the die size by one step. If the effect deals a fixed amount of damage reduce the amount of damage by (I haven't figured this amount out yet). Creatures of the same alignment as the original alignment damage cannot be affected in this way. (For example, while a champion of sarenrae could use this ability to deal fire damage to a lawful neutral creature, they could not use this ability to deal fire damage to a good aligned creature).

Magic Item Variant

The below is a combination of Automatic Bonus Progression and High Quality Items from the GMGs Magic Item Variants. I like to have magic items be less commonplace and be focused on cool effects rather than just numerical bonuses (hence the ABP), but do like the idea of a smith being able to make a really nice sword just by being good at smithing without having to use magic (hence the high quality items). I also feel that ABP doesn't address what to do with temporary bonuses from things like potions (and you don't get the permanent versions of those bonuses from ABP until a much higher level than the potions give you) so I try to address that.

I won't put in the full text here, just a summary.

This variant combines Automatic Bonus Progression and High Quality Items. All permanent item bonuses, and the items that grant them are removed. Characters add the Skill Potency, Devastating Attacks, Perception Potency, Saving Throw Potency, and Ability Apex class features from Automatic Bonus Progression to their class features. Permanent item bonuses to attack rolls and AC are replaced by the High-Quality Weapons and Armor rules, and these bonuses are converted to potency bonuses. All temporary item bonuses, such as those granted by consumables, are converted to potency bonuses. If a class ability or other effect would grant an item bonus, that bonus is also converted to a potency bonus.

No Humans
My setting had an apocalyptic event called the soul plague, which occurred as a result of the god of humanity (who where largely monotheistic and closely connected with just one deity) being destroyed. This wiped out all regular humans. The half-human remnants (half-orcs, half-elves, tieflings, etc) where left to pick up the pieces and rebuild those societies, essentially forming their own cultures. There are now successor nations of half-orcs, half-elves, tieflings, Ifrits, and so on. They have their own languages and cultures. Essentially, a bunch of the half-human and versatile heritages are essentially their own ancestry for lore and worldbuilding purposes.

To represent characters from these successor ancestries, you can play as a human, but with the following restriction.

Scion of Humanity
You are a member of one of the successor cultures descended from lost humanity. Your ancestry is human, but you may only select from the following heritages, each representing a member of a different successor culture with it's own language.

Dhampir
Half-elf
Half-orc
Ifrit
Oread
Suli
Sylph
Tiefling
Undine

At the GM's discretion, you may represent your character being a member of one of the above cultures who has unusual parentage or origin, in which case the unusual parentage overrides your heritage with another. In this case, you may select a different heritage chosen from any of the versatile heritages. For example, a half-orc blessed by the heavens might choose the Aasimar heritage instead of the half-orc heritage, choosing their feats from among Aasimar and Human feats, with the half-orc part of their heritage receding into the background and not granting any feats or abilities. At the GMs discretion, you may choose to forgo access to human feats in favour of the feats for your cultures base heritage. For example, the above Half-orc Aasimar could have the Human ancestry, Aasimar heritage, but has access to Aasimar, Half-orc and Orc feats, but not human feats.

Inventory Houserule
I feel like it is kind of weird that as of the core rulebook erratas (which removed bandoliers and pouches and just made it so you can assume items are on bandoliers/pouches) that the most effective choice is to..... carry everything on assumed bandoliers/pouches, except for 2 bulk worth of items which you stick in your backpack for the bulk reduction. I haven't figured out how to houserule this, but I am thinking of keeping the "assumed bandoliers/pouches" thing, but putting a limit on how many items you can count as "worn" at once - maybe to the amount of light items that the old bandolier + 1 of the old pouches + a scroll case and quiver could hold, 1 tool kit, and 3 weapons that have a bulk of 1 or greater. Whatever is left over has to be stowed in backpacks or sacks. But I am really not sure on this one, it might be too complicated to be worth tracking.

I have... a lot of thoughts. I feel scared to do this (it feels weird to make a thread just for me to dump out thoughts, but that seems to be a tradition in this section of the forums, so what the heck). I also just kind of need to express some things, and don't want to dump some of them in the LGBT community thread or in someone else's thread out of anxiety about bringing the mood down or monopolizing the energy of those spaces.

Just all I really want to say right now is.... I am so very tired. The recent... stuff... has been very draining, but I feel like I can step back because I generally think of myself as able to articulate things well (I don't know if I actually do it well, but people in my life often tell me that I do), and because of that I feel a responsibility to speak up about things, because I know how hard it is as an LGBT person (especially a trans person) to speak up, so when something happens I want to make sure that there are enough voices speaking up, because for each trans person speaking up there are probably 5 others who don't have the energy or are too afraid. I know it makes a difference to me when other trans people (and allies of trans people) speak up, so I want to hopefully do that too when I can.

So ummm, thanks for reading my rant.

I also make a lot of homebrew content, and might stick some of it in here at some point (and maybe links to various miniature painting and conversion stuff I do at some point in case people are interested). I also often have a lot of thoughts about the hobby, which I might post in here from time to time.

People do weird question threads on these forums, it feels weird for me to say this (as it feels immodest) but I am happy to (and would probably enjoy) answer if people want to ask random questions and stuff.

Apologies if this has already been discussed, a quick search didn't turn anything up for me.

So the various monk stances in the Core Rulebook & Secrets of Magic have "you are unarmoured" as their requirement. But in the APG, most of the stances (Gorilla Stance, Stumbling Stance, Shooting Stars Stance, Cobra Stance, Peafowl Stance, Whirling Blade Stance, etc) lack the "you are unarmoured" requirement.

Is this intended, or is it an oversight?

Relevant rules here; Personal Staves
Staves

The rules for wands and scrolls both specify that you can't put a cantrip, focus spell or ritual onto a wand or scroll, but because staves initially where specific items, this isn't specified. The rules for creating Personal Staves in Secrets of Magic don't seem to add this specification to bring them into line with wands and scrolls.

Is there a rule I am missing that stops you from putting a focus spell onto a staff? The only rule I can find is that

You can Cast a Spell from a staff only if you have that spell on your spell list

- If I had to guess, a focus spell technically is just a spell you can use but isn't on your spell list? So you can technically make a personal stave with focus spells on it but no one can then go and cast those spells?

So the Deimavigga (Apostate Devil) has the Whisper Earworm ability, where it

The deimavigga whispers a terrifying multiversal truth to one adjacent creature, shaking its faith in reality and divinity.

This truth is enough to prevent resting, and inflict drained and stupefied. On a critical failure of a save against this, the effect lasts until you erase all memory of what it said.

My question is - what kind of things would this horrible truth be? I feel like players would want to know what terrible thing is breaking their characters brain.

So I have a few reaper bones miniatures (mostly familiars) that are tiny creatures - I like to have everything on actual bases, but a standard 25mm base seems a bit too big for my taste. I could try just doing a lot of extra stuff on the base to make it into a mini-diorama type thing, but would be really nice if I could get my hands on bases similar to the ones that the wizkids miniatures use for their familiars and gnomes and stuff (they seem like they might be 15mm?) - wizkids only seem to sell 25mm bases and up separately, and most of the good base manufacturers only seem to do 25mm and up.

Anyone know somewhere where I can get small round bases of a similar material/quality to GW or Wizkids bases? I would prefer something like the GW bases (they are very stable and sturdy) but something like the flat wizkids bases are okay. Cork or wood bases are definitely not eligible.

So the Hekatonkheires Titan has the following ability;

Demolish Veil Free Action Frequency once per month; Trigger The titan casts plane shift; Effect The titan arrives in a storm of shattered planar barriers. This has the effects of a 10th-level storm of vengeance.

It isn't technically casting Storm of Vengeance, but it has the effects of storm of vengeance - can it use an action to sustain those effects? Or do those effects happen without needing to be sustained? Or does it just do the first round of Storm of Vengeance?

Odd question, but I just noticed that Bestiary 2 added two additional elephants that aren't hugely different to the Bestiary 1 elephants, as well as an elephant construct - I'm not sure if I am complaining exactly, just mildly perplexed.

This brings us up to a total of 6 elephants or elephant based creatures in PF2 so far

Anacus
Aolaz
Elephant
Iridescent Elephant
Mammoth
Mastodon

Is someone at Paizo just a big fan of elephants? Do the Anacus and Mastodon fill some niche that the Elephant and Mammoth don't that I am just not seeing? Am I overthinking this?

So I watched the movie Signs as a kid, and frequently end up discussing it with friends, and for some reason it made a really big impression of me as a kid, and did the same for some of my friends.

(For those unfamiliar with it, Signs is a movie that was released in 2002 that is about Alien Invaders creating crop circles and generally terrorizing a rural family. It explores themes of faith, family and aliens, was directed my M. Night Shyamalan and started Mel Gibson).

Spoilers for a 17 year old movie I guess?

The other movie that made a big impression on me was Land Before Time, but that was less frightening and more just slightly emotionally traumatic.

So umm, was anyone else majorly affected by childhood exposure to a movie, for good or for ill?

So, I am looking at the idea of making a biting focused goblin, and an looking for ways to make the bite attack viable as the character levels.

The relevant heritage;
Razortooth Goblin
Your family’s teeth are formidable weapons. You gain a jaws unarmed attack that deals 1d6 piercing damage. Your jaws are in the brawling group and have the finesse and unarmed trait.

So, the main issue is that weapons give you access to striking runes, which unarmed attacks don't get - a monk solves this with handwraps of Mighty Blows;

Handwraps of Mighty Blows
As you invest these embroidered strips of cloth, you must meditate and slowly wrap them around your hands. These handwraps have weapon runes etched into them to give your unarmed attacks the benefits of those runes, making your unarmed attacks work like magic weapons. For example, +1 striking handwraps of mighty blows would give you a +1 item bonus to attack rolls with your unarmed attacks and increase the damage of your unarmed attacks from one weapon die to two (normally 2d4 instead of 1d4, but if your fists have a different weapon damage die or you have other unarmed attacks, use two of that die size instead).

You can upgrade, add, and transfer runes to and from the handwraps just as you would for a weapon, and you can attach talismans to the handwraps. Treat the handwraps as melee weapons of the brawling group with light Bulk for these purposes. Property runes apply only when they would be applicable to the unarmed attack you’re using. For example, a property that must be applied to a slashing weapon wouldn’t function when you attacked with a fist, but you would gain its benefits if you attacked with a claw or some other slashing unarmed attack.

It seems to me like there is nothing specifying that the handwraps only work on specific types of unarmed attacks? So theoretically just wearing them makes you better at doing damage with bite attacks?

Can anyone find any issues with this? There are passing mentions of fists but they just seem to be passing mentions for examples sake rather than a requirement.

I think with my players I would rule that it works, just because I want them to be able to play niche options like razortooth goblins or lizardfolk or animal barbarians and to feel competitive with other characters, but it would be nicer to do it with the full backing of the rules without having to write a houserule.

With the monster creation pdf being out, I have been cooking up a few creatures, and someone suggested that I post them here.

Feel free to use any creatures I post here in your own games to torment and vex your players, or to post your own creatures for common use or discussion, or to provide/request constructive feedback.

I tend to mostly create custom creatures (I did this in starfinder a lot) to flesh out/complement existing factions. Goblins have a special place in my heart so I have started with them, partially to give them some level 2 options and partially to port over some goblin themes I loved in 1st edition.

Feral Gnasher The goblin Feral Gnasher is the strongest goblin in the tribe. They have overdeveloped jaws and whip themselves into a violent biting frenzy in combat, latching onto the ankles or calves of their opponents. A goblin Gnasher is often accompanied (from a respectable distance behind) by groups of goblin warriors.

Goblin Feral Gnasher LEVEL 2
CE SMALL GOBLIN HUMANOID
Perception +5; darkvision
Languages Common, Goblin
Skills Acrobatics +7, Athletics +7, Intimidation +7, Nature +5, Stealth +6
Str +3, Dex +3, Con +3, Int -1, Wis -1, Cha +2
Items dogslicer, leather armor, 3 javelins
AC 17 (16 while raging) Fort +11 Ref +11 Will +5
HP 28
Goblin Scuttle (reaction) As goblin warrior.
Speed 25 feet
Melee [one-action] jaws +11 (Grapple, unarmed) Damage 1d10+4/6 piercing and grab
[one-action] dogslicer +11 (agile, backstabber, finesse), Damage 1d6+3 slashing
Ranged [one-action] javelin +9 (thrown), Damage 1d6+3 piercing
Rage [one-action] The Feral Gnasher enters into a rage for one minute. They gain 5 temporary Hit Points, deal 2 additional damage with their jaw attack and follow all of the other rules for rage.

Goblin Bomber The Goblin Bomber is a goblin who through accident, experimentation and pyromania has figured out the basics of alchemy. They throw small pots full of crudely made alchemist's fire, and the inevitable mishaps caused by their experimentation has made them slightly resistant to fire.

Goblin Bomber LEVEL 2
CE SMALL GOBLIN HUMANOID
Perception +5; darkvision
Languages Common, Goblin
Skills Acrobatics +7, Crafting +7, Fire Lore +7, Nature +5, Stealth +6
Str +0, Dex +3, Con +3, Int +1, Wis -1, Cha +2
Items dogslicer, leather armor, 1d3 alchemists fire
AC 15 Fort +8 Ref +11 Will +5
HP 21 Resistances fire 1
Goblin Scuttle (reaction) As goblin warrior.
Speed 25 feet
Melee [one-action] dogslicer +7 (agile, backstabber, finesse), Damage 1d6+3 slashing
Ranged [one-action] firebomb +9 (alchemical, bomb, consumable, fire, splash, thrown) Damage 1d8+1 fire plus 2 persistent fire damage, and 2 fire splash damage.

Goblin Snake the conniving goblin snake was first introduced in PF1s Bestiary 3. I have given it the spellcasting that is suggested in its original description, and otherwise tried to make it have abilities that it either already had or that emphasized it's snakelike nature. It is intended to be a small boss creature that has bullied a bunch of goblins into serving it.

Goblin Snake LEVEL 2
UNCOMMON CE SMALL ABBERRATION GOBLIN
Perception +8; darkvision, scent (imprecise) 30 feet
Languages Common, Goblin
Skills Acrobatics +7, Athletics +7, Deception +8, Diplomacy +7, Intimidation +8, Local Lore +5, Nature +5, Stealth +11
Str +0, Dex +4, Con +3, Int +0, Wis +0, Cha +4
AC 18 Fort +8 Ref +11 Will +5
HP 21 Resistances fire 1
Slink (reaction) Trigger A creature ends its movement adjacent to the goblin snake or within the goblin snake’s space. Effect The goblin snake strides, climbs or swims up to 10 feet (or up to the relevant Speed, if that Speed is less than 10 feet). It must end its movement in a location that isn’t within 5 feet of a foe. This movement doesn’t trigger reactions.
Speed 15 feet, climb 15 feet, swim 20 feet
Melee [one-action] fangs +11 (agile, backstabber, finesse), Damage 1d8+4 piercing
Occult Spontaneous Spells DC 16, attack +10; 1st (3 slots) Charm, Fear, Goblin Pox Cantrips (1st) Daze, Prestidigitation
Goblin Breath [two-action] (olfactory, poison) The goblin snake releases a disgusting belch. Any creature within 5 feet of the goblin snake must succeed at a Fortitude save (DC 16) or become sickened 1 (plus slowed 1 as long as it’s sickened on a critical failure). Creatures with the Goblin trait are immune to this effect. The goblin snake cannot use this ability again for 1d3 rounds.

Generally I love the ancestry/heritage system, though in this case I wonder if many players would choose being an elf over being a half elf.

So for comparison, an elf gets;

6 HP
30 foot speed
Boosts to Dex, int
1 free boost
A flaw to Con
Low-light vision
An elf heritage
Elf feats

A half-elf gets;

8 hp
25 foot speed
2 free boosts
No ability flaw
Low-light vision
"No heritage"
Elf, human & half elf feats

The HP and speed difference is fairly negligible - the real trade is the heritage and boost/flaw, and feats.

2 free boosts is significantly better than a boost to Dex/int, and the free boost for the elf can be thought of as purchased by the flaw to Con.

I think three boosts and a flaw is better than two boosts and no flaw, as it let's you optimise more (this is why the option to take two flaws to get a boost exists as an optional rule)

But free boosts are generally better than specific boosts, so I think this balances out.

The elf heritage features I think it could be fair to balance them against the access to human and half elf feats, as that is the other real difference.

Is darkvision or cold resistance or tree climbing worth losing out on that sheer amount of feat versatility?

It feels a bit out of balance in favour of the half elf to me - I feel like the ability score situation is marginally better for the half elf, and my gut feeling on the feats vs heritages is that the human and half elf feat access is better than most, if not all, of the elf heritages.

I think the one and only feat advantage for elves is they are statistically more likely to qualify for ancestral longevity, as half elves generally only live up to 150, though as it is still possible for them to qualify just by the player choosing to be old (which has no mechanical downside).

Thoughts? Am I underestimating the elf, or are half elves just superior?

So, I am quite fond of PF2s experience system, though I would like my group to take longer to level up as they progress to higher levels, so - do you all think this would work?

Essentially, it would just be a case of switching to slower xp advancements speeds as the party progresses.

Levels 1-5: Fast Advancement (800 xp)
Levels 6-10: Normal Advancement (1000 xp)
Levels 11-15: Slow Advancement (1200 xp)
Levels 16-20: Very Slow Advancement (1400 xp)

Would the 16-20 levels be too slow? The 1-5s too fast? Thoughts?

Hey, I am not sure if I am missing something here, but how many charges can a staff hold?

The CRB states that "staves can be found in multiple versions, with more powerful versions that contain more spells and can hold more charges"

Though I can't see any indication in the entries for staves stating how many charges they have.

Anyone able to point out something I am missing?

Hey all,

The release of pathfinder 2 has meant that I can solidify the setting I have been working on into actual mechanical details for my home group to eventually play with.

At the moment, I am working on setting down the various mechanical details of the core deities for this setting, and would like to seek some guidance on something.

Most elements are easy to figure out how they balance - a deity provides one skill, one favoured weapon, four domains, etc.

But I am not sure how cleric spells are allocated - there seems to be no consistency between deities about what level of spells they offer or how many spells they offer.

Does anyone know of any helpful guidelines? Or have seen any patterns in how spells are allocated by various deities?

Anyone have any advice on how to choose cleric spells for deities, aside from just giving them what seems appropriate to their theme?

edit: looking again, there does seem to be a pattern of 3 per deity (except Nethys, who has 9!) but spell levels don't seem consistent

Reading the playtest rulebook, I have had the novel experience of an rpg rulebook actually starting with an explanation in simple terms of how tabletop rpgs actually work.

That it actually in clear terms explains the roles of the gm and the players, how the game works, the modes of play, and how the flow of actions works straight up is very good.

Most rpg books seem to assume a lot of knowledge on the part of players and gms, so seeing everything spelled out from the start, and things arranged in a hierarchical way with clear definitions is very refreshing.

So, I have noticed a bit of a balance issue with the polymorph spell. 2nd level polymorph enables you to turn into CR3 magical beasts.

Now, normally this wouldn't be an issue, except for the existence of the CR3 Tashtari.

The Tashtari, colloquially known as LASER WOLVES, are wolves with phosphorescent fur that looks like crystals that shoot LASER BEAMS out of their mouths. Which raises the question - if you where a spellcaster able to cast 2nd level polymorph, why would you ever turn into anything other than a freaking laser wolf? If you can think of a reason why you would turn into literally anything else, then you are wrong and need to re-examine your position.

RPGs are supposed to be about choices - some choices should be better or worse than others, that makes things realistic. However, in this case, only one choice is valid (turning into a laser wolf) and all other choices are wrong and you should feel bad for even considering it. The laser wolf warps the balance of the game (and potentially space-time) with its sheer radness. Whenever it's name is spoken all vans within a 100 km radius spontaneously generate metal art of a pack of laser wolves running through a storm and shooting lasers out of their mouths. The Tashtari is so awesome that it breaks one of the cardinal rules of reality - that all dogs are good boys. This dog is a Bad boy (the capital B is intentional). It is way cooler than you. It is so cool that it is forbidden from riding motorcycles, as that would be too much concentrated awesome in one place. Of course, being a Bad boy, the Tashtari is a master of motorcycle riding and doesn't care about what is forbidden.

So, should paizo ban the tashtari from being a polymorph form?

I have spent a lot of time using the npc creation rules to recreate creatures from pathfinder bestiaries in starfinder, and in the process I have found a lot of creatures that thematically fit really well with starfinder but aren't in starfinder yet.

What space/sci-fi appropiate creatures from pathfinder do you all think would be great to see in an alien archive?

Also, what fantasy themed creatures would you like to see added to an alien archive with a sci-fi twist? (Like the blue dragon with laser cannon from alien archive 1)

Personally, for the first category I would love to see the plasma ooze, oblivion, Tzitzimitl, immortal ichor, worm that walks, aboleth and astradaemon get the official alien archive treatment.

For the second category, I would love to see some kind of cyber-troll (how about a troll augmented with adaptive cybernetics that make it even harder to kill, a long with some integrated weapons?) and maybe some other classic creatures given a sci-fi twist, like a quantum mimic or a cryptosphninx.

One of my biggest problems with how the operative plays is trick attack - when my group had an operative (daredevil operative) she trick attacked using acrobatics every time.

There never was any reason for her to trick attack with a different skill, or any reason to not trick attack, so there wasn't any real choice involved, unlike the rogues sneak attack where you have to at least put thought into positioning to set yourself up for a sneak attack.

I tried requiring her to describe how she tricks the opponent, but there are only so many ways you can describe using acrobatics in a trick attack.

I have had some thoughts on how to tackle this if my group gets an operating again, but am unsure as to how much messing with the mechanics would break the balance of the class.

I think my prototypical change would be something like this;

Part 1: Add a prerequisite that needs to be met to use each particular skill for trick attacks
For example, you have to move 15 feet or move over/through an obstacle or enemy before you can trick attack with acrobatics. You need to be able to attempt a hide action to trick attack with stealth, and etc.
Part 2: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. You can't trick someone the same way twice! You may only use each skill once per combat on a particular enemy (maybe refreshing once you have cycled through all your trick attack skills).

I think those would help to add some element of decision making to trick attack, so it isn't just a boring dice roll, without too heavily messing with a classes core mechanic.

Any thoughts? Ideas?