Conrasu are by the most WEIRDEST playable race.
In Pathfinder, absolutely, but I dare say Starfinder has set the goal to one up them, what with the tiny vainglorious suns-with-a-face and fire-breathing crabfolk and four-eyed stony land-squid.
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Rival Academies implied there might be a new Rakshasa heritage, a character describes themselves as a "Janavata," a rakshasa who's given up their evil nature and been reincarnated as a mortal with animalian traits. Whether this exists alongside a new Beastbrood Nephilim lineage or replaces it I can't say. The latter might be defunct with Rakshasa being spirits instead of fiends now, but the same is true for Asura and faultspawn have been remastered (thought Asura being spirits seems to have been a last minute decision, given WoI explicitly refers to them as fiends and Battlecry! includes them in the army of fiends Incarnate spell, even using the legacy name for the specific creature that got changed in MC2 only four months later).
Huh. The idea that iruxi are from the endothermic branch of reptiles, much like Dinosaurs, is... interesting. Oh that makes sense actually, their lore does strongly emphasize the "Legacy of Ancient Beasts" angle, plus Droon being all full of dinosaurs. That does lead to the question of why so many of their heritages are direct references to species of modern lizard like chameleon and frilled lizards.
From a comment I made when I first noticed it, the preview pages of High Seas went up on or before April 21. That's about ten weeks prior to release. Even if we're going by the street date rather than the GenCon early release, if Impossible Magic were following the same pattern, its previews would already have been up for a while. Which is a very drawn out way of saying: I'unno. When somebody at Paizo feels like it, I guess. Might be they're holding back spoilers, might be they're more willing to put out previews for Lost Omens books because there aren't the sketch and pocket covers to fill out the docket. Incidentally, this prompted me to discover Bastion of Blasphemies has preview pages out! There's new Sahkils!
Bit of new info in yesterday's Paizo Live: We're getting ship combat rules! I wonder if they'll use any of the same ideas as the starship rules due out in Tech Core, might be a preview. Other reveals, "Dashing" class feats, good for Swashbucklers but available to other classes -- the sort of cut a rope and swing across the battlefield, slashing as you go antics you expect of high flying naval adventures, but specifically designed to still be useful if you have to head inland. We're also confirmed getting some new familiars or animal companions, with the example being given of a "golden ermine" -- some kind of white stoat with a golden tail? The rest was mainly stuff we already knew -- gushing about the writeups on Mediogalti and the Mordant Spire. Ivis was also deliberately quiet during the Q&A about who or what the seaweed creature on the table of contents page was, there's apparently some spoilers there! One more month everybody!
Yeah, they specifically started talking about Necromancer as a wholistic class just after anouncing the Remaster because "Necromancy Wizard" had to stop being a thing.
I was hoping Nyctessa would get to shine as the iconic, especially after Wake the Dead, but I do like Usharak and his story. He's a refreshing take on a necromancer, and it works well with how integrated it is into iruxi traditional practices. Ditto. I'd put money down she'll be one of the Sample Builds though, and I could see her turning up in the narrative of IM.
I thought there was a difference in the "bug" in the upper left corner of Lost Omens covers that reads "Second Edition" -- that Remastered ones were green and Legacy were parchment, but it seems that's not universal as the Tian Xia books and Divine Mysteries all have the paper texture despite being Remaster books. I may have been thinking of how the Rulebook line all has the same green bug post-remaster.
I saw a post somewhere a long time ago that suggested reflavoring PF Bugbears as brood parasites -- like cuckoos, they sneak their young into the…litters(?) of goblins and hobgoblins, who then use their greater strength and ruthlessness to outcompete their "siblings" until they get all hairy and sneak away.
Oh all that green material is glass! From the bookcover I assumed it was jade. Love the backstory, and love the design! He's so wiry and lean, I feel like lizardfolk designs tend to lean more stocky and muscular, Usharak feels so gaunt in a way that's both very "dark spellcaster" and totally reptillian.
Eh, goblins are the only ones with that manic edge, though. Firestarters, bad singers, hates animals seemingly just for being trappings of organized society. They're the ones with the strongest link to Lamashtu. Bugbears as described are antisocial, yes, but they're not driven my mayhem in the same way, just an enjoyment of fear and pain.
I remember when one of the microfiction blogs in the lead up to Tian Xia World Guide came out, the author showed up in the blog comments (RIP) to talk about their love of Gong'an, chinese mystery fiction about Holmesy government magistrates. Seems like we're getting a whole AP in that vein! Sounds like the main action of the "present" timeline will be your lawyer arguing on your behalf, which the PCs will have some influence over while observing their right to remain silent. Presumably casting mid-rank spells in court will be frowned upon.
Divs are still fiends as of MC2, but otherwise I'm hoping for a little of all of the above. The excerpt Eleanor read in that livestream seemed to be a bit of golden-road folk religion, which is always fun flavor. There's a lot of ambiguity around Spirits in the setting. A couple states in Tian Xia World Guide list "Spirit worship" among their religions, but little detail is given on that aside from a brief blurb on "The Way of Spirits" under Philosophies. We've got monster stats for Kami, but how does that integrate with culture? What the hell is the deal with "Spirit Guides" and how specifically do they relate to Sarkoris and God Callers, or with other regions? I'm really looking forward to this one. Fantasy tends to deal with religion in a very top down manner; these are the big psudo-Abrahamic capital-g Gods. But all those Venerated Ancestors and River Gods and Folk under the Hills give a setting a much more lived-in feel.
To actually answer your question, take whatever bonuses to athletics you can, use Runic Weapon your first round to get into your stance, at least until you get handwraps. The item bonus from the spell will also boost your disarm, trip, and (as long as you're in stance) grapple actions with the fabric due to its traits. Deal bursts of spellstrike damage where you can, but keep in mind, your niche is control. Swipe out your enemies' feet, steal their gear, bind them up with Home Among Mulberry Leaves; every action you steal from your enemies is invaluable, be it to stand, draw a new weapon, or escape. Keep in mind which of those has the move or manipulate trait and if any of your allies have Reactive Strike. Use your imagination as you describe your maneuvers, the cooler your description the more fun it will be for you and the rest of your table. There's also always utility in bumping your Int for recall knowledge (as well as spellcasting), or your Cha for other skill actions. Important: talk to your GM about homebrewing a basic Class DC for the Magus, RAW it's still from the premaster before they even gave those to casters, the critical specialization effect you get from Mauler won't technically have a DC to roll against otherwise. This will almost certainly get fixed in Impossible Magic -- for now you can either use your spell DC (a couple level one feats allow this with specific weapons) or come up with independent scaling (maybe look at Starfinder Classes for inspo). Frankly, unless you guys level up like crazy, IM will probably be out before it's a problem if you're starting at level one. Be prepared for larger enemies -- Those athletics maneuvers need to target something not too much bigger than you. To start out you should think about being a large ancestry, a Hungerseed with Oni Form, and/or just having Titan Wrestler, which you could get as a Pitborn Nephilim to start but should pick up later otherwise. You should also grab Enlarge later on (another good option to start out combat with once you get handwraps better than your current Runic Weapon rank). Don't let these guys discourage you from leaning into the fun character you want to play just because it might not live up to some Big Big Damage Number that exists in their heads. Have fun whacking people with the curtains!
They also slipped in that the narrative angle of the book will be "The Search for Nex." It was specified that some feature that Summoner and Magus both had would see an improvement, which has left a lot of people speculating it's a change to wave casting.
That is kind of the central conceit of Golarion, Gods of a cosmological scale all have a vested interest in it. Normally that also means they can't exert too much direct influence on it -- meddling could mean fights and fights could mean destruction and destruction means release. It seems Asmo is testing the limits of that.
I hope we will see the sorcerer bloodlines that were not updated/reprinted: genie, shadow, psychopomp. Maybe even the two from APs (phoenix and harrow). While I think the nymph one could be in Feybound. This was also my thought, though I could also see Shadow coming in the Nidal section of LO Infernal Inheritance (and not a minute too soon either way, it's one of the subclasses most in need of remastering)
To be fair, Azaersi was herself a Goblinblood Wars veteran before fleeing into the mountains of Molthune, very possibly these two revolutions stem from the same tradition of goblinoid patriotism, one branch of which just had to travel a bit before finding fertile ground. Oprak also sounds like it's more inviting toward a variety of "monstrous" peoples from across the Inner Sea, a pointed "come one come all, here you can be normal" Statue of Liberty kind of message. Meanwhile from the sound of it Scorchome is more the goblinoids of the Chitterwood declaring themselves to the world, a bit more ethnocentric. Different national vibes.
I have to imagine "moving out of Cheliax" is going to be significantly more popular than it has been. What's Varian Jeggare up to anyway? I've got a pitch, free to use: the coloquial term for Chelaxian Expats and Refugees, "Bats." As in, "out of Hell."
I was gonna say, the Archetypes section is failry general, and there's no column for it in the table. A basic blurb on incorportating Pure Legion Enforcer, Twilight Talon, Steel Falcon, even a Hellknight-Errant seems relevant.
No mention of what elements are thematically most appropriate.The sidebar about Devils strongly suggests "not fire" at least. Water seems like a fairly strong choice, given the Aura Junction would protect any troop you're commanding from hellfire. Good choice for the Embargo Survivor background, a waterbending sailor who happened to stop in the wrong port at the wrong time and just wants their ship back, dammit!
Definitely seconding exploration and archaeology with Kaiju thundering overhead, we're overdue for an open-world, venturing into the wilds campaign. Plus I could play Nagaji-Daniel Jackson From Stargate and that delights me suddenly.
Yeah, Unfurling Brocade specifically feels more combat maneuver focussed. The Magus' damage output is gonna come mostly from spellstrike, not the weapon itself anyway, the versatility of your qi infused fabric gives you control options on the turns in between spellstriking. So after initially getting into your stance, it's one turn of move, spellstrike with reach; then next turn move, recharge or cast Home Among the Mulberry Leaves, and either trip, grapple, or disarm in whatever order. Repeat and fill out with awesome descriptions of your magical sleeves messing people up like the Wuxia villain you are.
Fire giants are also large, but there I think the problem isn't their size, it's their immunities. Them and frost giants, I worry knocking them down to the standard 1/2 level resistance would be unsatisfying, though a few ancestries do evoke being a somehow changed example of their kind to lose their iconic abilities (e.g. Dragonet). As far as Ogres go, I could see there being a growing population of more stable Ogres, between Oprak and the handful who get goaded into joining smallfolks' armies over the years. Plus, with Oni no longer associated with giants and the "Ogre Mage" title dead, there's an open niche for the Puss in Boots-style smart (possibly-shapeshifter) Ogre. Maybe some sort of evolutionary holdout from before Ghol-Gan's collapse and the broader population turned to barbarism or something?
An invasive species refers specifically to one that harms its new environment, typically by being over-adapted to a region without the predators that evolved alongside it or the harsh conditions it developed around, resulting in overpopulation and/or depletion of native resources. If the skunks are running rampant because Avistani wolves are completely unadapted to their defensive spray and they're overhunting certain small animals, they're invasive. Otherwise its just an introduced species.
It has occured to me how much a PF Battledancer Swashbuckler would benefit from being paired up with this class. You need to Perform to get your panache? Here, now it also does one of eight other things!
I think it's the nature of Occult magic to be a bit more ambiguous in its origins, and the Psychic feels the most centrally occult of all the classes. Are Psychics born? Cultivated? Created? Some combination of the above? Yes. No. Maybe so. The nature of being so occult in its origins is that we do not and can not know with certainty.
Well this is unexpected, I'd failed to notice Hell's Destiny got moved up a month. Makes sense to have a shiny new release out for Free RPG Day.
I mean, they've said outright that dungeon crawls sell well, but if you're complaining that they don't ever stretch creatively I'll remind you there's a whole high-level campaign about producing an opera.
See, I feel like we shouldn't necessarily conflate Charisma with confidence -- it is by far the stat with the most narrative nuance. A "mousey and shy" person might still be beautiful, and compelling, and have a subtle grasp of how to influence people, even if they're disinclined to force their presence on to others. And on the flip side, a loud and brash person is not necessarily pleasant to be around.
Even in those narrative rolls, in context this feels more like it's centered on force of personality and wit, rather than some kind of strategic intellect -- the rolls mechanic emphasizes that the class is an improvisational storyteller, weaving circumstance into spectacle. It's not like the commander, drilling your allies in practical maenuvers they have to execute, your potent occult will clads people in narrative archetypes -- whether they like it or not. Also, this is coming off the heels of two Int-based SF classes, and they can't very well make the whole game brainiacs.
Every loyal Hellknight in a hundred mile radius of your approximate location, recieving a simultaneous Sending: "Find these infidels wherever they hide and -- oh, Prince of Darkness, it's everywhere! Scrub harder you peasants! -- kill them with extreme prejudice, whatever it takes!"
It actually seems really interesting to me, it's a non-spellslot focus-caster martial, kinda like a Champion/optional Ranger/Monk, but with a centrally magical action economy centered on illusorally buffing and debuffing. So you don't technically get any Spells, but you have an almost Kineticist-like passive command of holograms and hardlight to effectively… narratively position your allies toward success? It might feel a bit mechanically restrictive in its current form, but the conceit of a storytelling illusionist class is very compelling to me.
I will admit you can't deny the chief hierarchy of deities worshipped in the region are pretty directly lifted from Shintoism. As of 2e there are plenty of clearly Chinese and SE Asian inspired gods, but Shizuru's preeminence as the leader of the pantheon and the figures directly tied to her story does mark a distinct Japanophilia baked into the setting.
I'm not sure I understand how anything I said contradicts that? Yes, the rarity system, at its lowest baseline, is specific to the genralized Inner Sea Region of Golarion. The whole point of "the Inner Sea Region of Golarion" is to cover the bases of a standard "European Medieval Fantasy" (with notable outliers -- genrally tagged with the rarity system). Katanas are Uncommon (i.e. out of place) in the standard TTRPG blend of Tolkien, Howard, Moorcock, and Vance. If you travel to Tian Xia, the explicit carveout in those rarities alerts you, implicitly, that you are now operating under the paradigm of "Silk Punk" instead. And so on. Your second statement I can only assume comes from misreading mine. I explicitly said "until you tell your players as much." A) That was a summation of common genre expectations, and B) Somebody absolutely would argue their idea for The One Champion In The World, and you know it.
"Might be" is carrying a lot of weight there. Golarion is meant to be as diverse a "Fantasy" setting as plausible -- boasting everything from Sword & Sandal heroes, to Post Apocalyptic wastes, to Arthuresque courts, to Alien Invaders -- while still falling within the rough assumptions of The Genre. This is both to provide an in-world venue for diverse campaigns, and (I should think) to provide inspiration and resources for diverse worlds. Rarity tags deliniate the expected from the unexpected. Your homebrew world might be populated predominantly by Automata, Surki, and Yaoguai, but until you tell your players as much, most people's assumption is that there are going to be elves and dwarves involved. That's just the broad shape of the genre. In general, the base classes are meant to be relatively setting agnostic -- note how few times the actual rules text on the Exemplar mentions Gorum's blood. Archetypes, as well feats and features published in APs and Lost omens books are ofted gated behind specific factions, and Ancestry options often gesture at the shape of lore. But Paizo is in no way demanding that you use Golarion, it is there as a bundle of templates for your convenience.
Exactly! People were decrying it from the get as "The Protagonist Class" because most of its features are straight up based on some or another mythological demigod who are usually pretty central to their narrative. Even if we remove the in-word logic of "small number of people hit with Gorum Ichor," the narrative implication of pretty much every named class feature is "semi-divine warrior," which carries a lot of weight in pretty much every culture on the planet. Frankly, the default assumption outside of Golarion isn't "marial oracle," it's "I'm the child/reincarnation of one of the Pantheon." You can explicitly flavor your character away from that if you want, but you're gonna be fighting against the fact that every feat and feature is a direct reference to Hercules/Rama/Cú Chulainn/Sun Wukong all the way from one to twenty.
Jason Keeley noted on Bluesky a couple days ago that the blog had to be written on the same day the playtest ended, so they didn't actually have time to thoroughly look over the feedback and are essentially reporting whatever could be figured out right away. They're still actively working on what changes need to be made and how. In any case, I suspect the "lukewarm reception" might be part of the reason the updates are terse. The people who liked these classes seemed to have a clear idea of the central improvements needed, which the blog mostly covers. Most of the people who disliked them seemed to object to the core class fantasies, which, frankly, not a whole lot can be done about.
Secondly—if you dislike the abundance of specifically Japanese elements (and I myself agree that Tian Xia draws its inspiration primarily from Japan)—the solution isn't to reject potential content entirely; rather, you should advocate for adding more "flavor" drawn from other real-world cultures. It’s not as if there aren't plenty to choose from. One of the things I especially liked about the 2e Tian Xia books is how broad they are in their coverage of Asian cultures -- two of the new ancestries and several of the heritages are broadly Southeast Asian, one is Filipine, one is broadly hindu-buddhist but is given a Tibetan aesthetic, another is Chinese. Only one new ancestry, a versetile heritage and a couple of the additional heritages for extant ancestries are specifically Japanese -- adding to the, I would say, one and a half that already existed (Kitsune uses the Japanese term, but the base concept exists across East Asia and the chinese name is also referenced). On the class options side only one is specifically Japanese, and it's the Magical Girl one, i.e. a reference to distinctly modern pop culture, allowing it to feel more generalized and fitting outside the feaudal-into-Meiji vibe of Minkai. In 1e the Japanese influences were a little more prominent, what with Fantasy Japan, Elf Japan, Horror Japan(s), and Seven Samurai-Happiness in Colonialism Japan, but even then it was hardly all-encompasing the 2e books add a lot of much needed nuance.
I'm sure we'll eventually solve All the problems and institute a perfect worldwide utopia riiiiiiiiight before The Gap happens.
The Rare and Uncommon tags really only have as much weight as we give them, outside of official society play, and here really relate more to setting expectations than anything. Like, the Gunslinger and Inventor are Uncommon, to my eye, just because maybe your homebrew setting doesn't have this kind of steampunk/renaissance technology level where those would be a thing, and you should ask your GM first if that's the case or you're both comfortable with you being the world's first Gunslinger Percy CriticalRole style. Now, that's theoretically true of a lot of classes. It's probably not plausible to say there are no masters of weaponry or sneak-attacking thieves unless your setting is really weird. But you could absolutely build a world where the Gods are very distant and maybe dead, so Clerics and Champions are Rare here if they exist at all. But that's not the standard expectation. Like it or not, there is a baseline standard for what sort of fantasy world these games are assumed to be set in, building off the last century of sword and sorcery stories and the last 50 years of TTRPG settings. Everyone is free to use or diverge from that baseline on a whole mess of axes, but within that baseline there are almost certainly priests and knights who channel power from their gods, maybe cackling machinists with one-of-a-kind steam powered combat automata, and probably not many semi-divine designated heroes whose names, titles, and impliments will go be carried on through history and into myth, save for like, one or two guys who are probably the protagonists. Golarion exists as a baseline for you to use or diverge from as you see fit, meant to be diverse enough in cultural and genre trappings that whatever sort of game you want to play you can probably find something to either use or draw inspiration from, but it is a baseling and it has its own expectation and limitations.
Really curious how much setting info can squeak into this one. No kidding, with four classes including eidolons, archetypes, and over two hundred spells, unless it's noticably bigger than the usual non-core rulebooks, it's gonna be a tight fit. To be fair they've already done a full Impossible Lands setting book, so this only needs to be an update if it's really going that direction, but you'd expect some rumination on the philosophy of Magic if it's really a remaster for SoM.
Slightly tangental, but I've realised you can play the Japanese Imperial Regalia/"Three Sacred Treasures" as your three Thaumaturge impliments: sword, mirror, and the bead/jewel could be an amulet or regalia to avoid having two reaction impliments. Do with that what you will, I have a character in mind who bailed on a heist and is almost certain he took the forgeries.
I've often been fond of the idea of a Skeleton Swashbuckler who's a post-seppuku samurai, left to decay on the battlefield before awakening many years later, and fighting with the enchanted wakizashi the previous him did it with. Personally as far as ninja builds go I prefer a monk over a rogue, more focus on defense and mobility, lean into the high-flying feats angle. Combine shooting stars stance with the Assassin dedication if you're using Free Archetype.
It's really as simple as not wanting to "Samurai" to be hailing from places like Fantasy China and the Fantasy Philippines. That'd be funny. "The archetypes you're looking for are Minkaian Retainer and Jade Throne Assassin. They're from an AP and both have the Rare tag."
If you're an Arcane caster with the Elementalist archetype, then the Sanctified spell Divine Immolation, as well as the Holy spells Holy Light and Holy Cascade are all on your spell list (and count as Arcane when you cast them) due to having the fire or water traits, even though 2 out of 3 aren't typically on the Arcane or Primal lists.
What is funny to me about the name monk getting wrapped in this conversation is that the class has nothing to do with monasticism, which is practiced by many different faiths all over the world, and is instead about asceticism, and should probably be called the ascetic, which actually comes from Ancient Greece. Well, the issue there is that the Monk doesn't really deal with asceticism, at least in the general sense, it deals with martial arts in the context of ascetisism. Which is fairly specific to the Sinosphere, I believe due to veterans seeking out the peace of temples and spreading their training, and the idiom of the Warrior Monk becoming a cultural touchstone. The class, going back to 1e D&D, is based pretty specifically on the Kung Fu movie boom in the 70's, there's no way around that. (Also, while the term asceticism comes from Greek, the practice comes about independently across the world)
My first thought for "Aberration Archetype" is like… Rasputin in the Del Toro Hellboy movie with the Ogdru Hem writhing under his skin, but I feel like that's kinda covered with Living Vessel. Could also go for some kind of environment-warping control build, eyes and mouths appearing out of the walls all horror-like. My only other pitch is basically the last act of Akira. Kinda hard to toe the line between "unpredicatable enough to fit the genre" and "controlled enough to be playable" for this sort of thing. If we're going for an aberrant versetile heritage, I'd put my vote on an Outer God Child so you can go full Wilbur Whateley. It was a monster adjustment in 1e, and it's not like it'd be overpowered (the source material got mauled to death by a regular dog!)
No, I'm almost certain someone said that in one of the Paizo Lives leading up to the release. I don't particularly feel like combing through two-year-old twitch streams to find it, but I think it's there.
Part of the argument the devs made was that there's no singular "class fantasy" encompasing everything someone might expect from those titles. Is a ninja a hyper-skilled agility combatant? Or a gishy illusionist? Or a comically stealthy striker? Ask three nerds, you'll get three answers. By comparison a Viking is fairly narratively straightforward: nautical raiders with axes and seaxes. Meanwhile, I was hoping Tian Xia Character Guide would include a Jiang-Shi Undead Archetype and a Dagger-axe, but you don't see me bringing it back up on the forums every six months. When will my beloved dagger-axe return from the war… |