Thebazilly's page

I'm running without Free Archetype, since my players are all fairly new to the system. I didn't want to overload them with more feats as they're already having difficulty with the number of choices. Maybe in the future, but I'm souring more and more on Free Archetype the longer I think about it.

If I used it in the future, I would probably restrict it to a handful of options that fit the theme of the campaign. Maybe replace unlocking the ability to take an archetype in an adventure path with just automatically gaining it as a free archetype. (Abomination Vaults has a couple unique archetypes, for example, one of which is very skill-focused and not all that useful, and one of which is unlocked at level 8 of a 10-level adventure.)

There are a lot of flavorful archetypes that will just never get used, even in a Free Archetype game. The fighting style, Marshal, or Medic archetypes are just much more mechanically useful than "you are a Pirate."

What is the purpose of Mezmin's advice? How does keeping eyes closed help the heroes?

I suspect there was some other puzzle here that was a victim of editing. Jaul's advice doesn't make a difference in the puzzle as written.

I think Level 1 is a good starting place here. I'll take a stab at some of this to show you how I'd translate it.

When they first enter the dungeon there's a poison arrow trap mostly meant to fire at them and alert them: THIS DUNGEON HAS TRAPS!

Reflavor a Poisoned Lock trap as a dart. I'd only use one or two, since the way Simple Hazards are balanced mean they are pretty much guaranteed to hit and damage a PC.

Goblins Tunnels with some sword and shield goblins engaging the party, and goblin archers hitting and running through the tunnels ambushing the party.

The standard Goblin Warrior has both a melee and ranged attack. Let's also throw in a Goblin Commando as a leader!

The second is a trap I was inspired by from Goblin Slayer in which there's a hard to see hidden passage past a break in the wall on the way to the very obvious straight ahead spider warren for goblin reinforcements to ambush the party from behind...or get ambushed if the party has great perception! Along the way there are spider webs all over the walls and a giant acid pit between the party and the spider warren.

Sounds like you want a secret door, let's say that's a DC15 Perception to spot, with a trapped hallway and a safer hallway.

There will be a spiked pit trap down this corridor leading up to the first mixed orc and hobgoblin trap.

I'd recommend just using a regular old Pit Trap. My first time playing my character got stuck in one for ages and couldn't climb out!

Let's go for a Moderate encounter with the orcs and the pit trap here. An Orc Brute is a level 0 creature (party level-1), so worth 30XP. The trap is worth 6XP for being a party-1 simple hazard. The encounter budget for a 5 PC moderate encounter is 100XP. So we can get pretty close with 3 Orc Brutes and 1 Hidden Pit Trap.

The level 2 Orc Warchief would probably be a great boss encounter for the end! Make sure you follow the Encounter Building rules. They are accurate, unlike 5e's encounter guidelines!

B2. Large Monster Holding. There's a Rusty Grate Pit (Hazard 6) with a Stealth DC 0.

Is that "Stealh DC 0" a typo?

I'm looking over the Building Hazards rules, and all of its stats seem to align with a Hazard 6 Low challenge, about the middle point of the range, so it would seem that a DC 20 would have been what would be expected.

I'm not saying I want a player to fall into the pit...but I really want a player to fall into the pit. :)

In my hardcover compilation version, it says this grate pit is "Stealth DC20 (expert), or 0 if the grate is open."

I've always wondered about the half-elf thing on Golarion. You'd think with Elves being from an entirely different planet, they'd be more difficult to interbreed with.

Congrats! That's a huge achievement!

I recall a Reddit thread where someone was "showcasing" how helpful ChatGPT could be for generating NPC statblocks. They prompted it to create a backstory for a Tiefling Wizard who is a coward. ChatGPT wrote 3 paragraphs about this idea, but it didn't come up with anything new, just restating the prompt in more words.

Or this example, where there is a human player prompting ChatGPT with some ideas, but it still fills in the blanks with the most generic answers imaginable.

The thing that's fun about tabletop RPGs is that there are limitless options and creativity. A computer on the other side of the screen necessarily curtails it.

Also, I'm on team forever GM and I'm either getting Stockholm Syndrome or finally growing into the role because I enjoy it more than playing now.

In the Impossible Lands books, it refers to the large stew pots that the dwarves of Dongun Hold cook. It mentions some have been stewing and cooking since before the time of Nex and Geb according to their cooks. Just a few paragraphs later, it mentions that during the winter months, all fires are extinguished, and even cookfires go dark as dwarves eat only preserved or otherwise dry goods.

As written, it seems to imply these forever-cooking stews are allowed to just... sit for a season, which is understandably vile. Can we assume that these stews DO continue cooking and simply are not eaten, or is the assumption that the stews are somehow preserved or frozen in the mountain heights to be re-thawed when the fires roar back to life?

This confused me, too.

The cooking fire tradition seems to be based on the Jewish practice of not lighting or extinguishing a fire on the sabbath. Maybe they are allowed to keep the fire burning as long as it was started before the winter?

we have run through what was an 8-month supply of our Pathfinder Core Rulebook in the last 2 weeks

The ORC Horde has arrived and pillaged the warehouse! This is awesome news!

I also really like Arazni after learning a bit more about her. Love that she reclaimed her agency, love that she's a goddess that doesn't want to be worshiped, but is still inspiring enough that people will do so anyway. Love that there's space for her to be angry and vengeful about what happened to her. Also, Arazni's Anathema including "insult Arazni" is hilarious.

Oh, is this an edition war thread now?

I'm of the opinion that there should be a Final Fantasy Tactics style feat that lets you administer potions/elixirs by hucking them at your friends' heads. Item action economy is just kinda janky.

There's definitely one in Abomination Vaults. I can only assume there's one in every Adventure path. My players refuse to sell it.

How much do Pathfinder and Starfinder books rely on SRD? If that gets yanked, does that mean no more owlbears in Pathfinder and magic missile gets renamed?

It's still an arguable point the extent which SRD content is even copyrightable. The original OGL is just Wizards saying "we won't attempt to sue you for using this stuff, and we will attempt to sue you for using that stuff." You can't copyright the words "magic" or "missile," or a game mechanic that does d4 force damage, or the concept of a wizard shooting out magical energy that unerringly hits an enemy. But if you combine all of them, is that copyrightable? Nobody knows.

So, depends on how ballsy Paizo is feeling. I'd guess they're going to err on the side of caution, given the card game renames the spell.

Copywright doesn't just protect words and the way in which words are written but the ideas in those words.

This is incorrect in many cases. Knitting patterns, recipes, and game mechanics (and I'm sure many other procedure-based forms of communication) are all un-copyrightable. The only thing in them protected by copyright is the specific choice and order of words.

What exactly do they use the OGL *for* though? I was under the impression that rules were not copy writable or protectable. Is it just the name "d20" or "d20 system" that they own?

I'm also confused about this. The article mentions that Mutants and Masterminds is built on the OGL. Is Wizards trying to exercise ownership over every d20 system?

This reminds me of when Blizzard released the Warcraft remake with the changes to the community creations, trying to pre-empt another DotA getting away without giving them any money.

Is it intentional that you get XP for killing Chafkhem but not for using diplomacy on the encounter? A lot of encounters explicitly give the same XP for the non-violent solution. Feels a little bad. The 30 XP sidequest doesn't make up the difference.

There's a couple places like this in the adventure. I've been giving full XP for bypassing/befriending any enemies even when it's not specifically noted. I want to reward this sort of behavior!

Wow, cool! Dwarf AP with Crystal Fraiser on the byline? Very exciting!

willfromamerica wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

keftiu wrote:

I’m super curious how well Gatewalkers and Stolen Fate feel together as one campaign. The promise of swapping 1-10s and 11-20s has always been great, but none of the options have felt like great lead-ins to FotRP, so I have high hopes here.

Having written the last volume of Gatewalkers and developed all of Stolen Fate...

...apart from the levels matching up well, they won't really match up at all as one campaign.

That's fine, of course. But just to manage expectations, these two Adventure Paths are VERY different.

Stolen Fate does offer some advice on how to start up with a group of 11th level PCs from ANY 1st to 10th level Adventure Path though, since Stolen Fate starting with "You're all famous adventurers and that's why (INITIAL EVENT OF STOLEN FATE) happens to you and not someone else."

There's maybe a bit more organic links between some stuff that I'm working on now along these lines, but those announcements are several months away I suspect.

Just for fun, which of the 1-10 APs do you think segues most naturally into Stolen Fate?

Abomination Vaults.

As someone currently running Abomination Vaults and prematurely daydreaming about what to do for levels 11-20, this excites me greatly.

Call me basic, but I really like a lot of the core deities.

Sarenrae is a classic archetype (how many good sun gods must there be out there?) but she comes across as kindly when she needs to be and firm when she needs to be, which is a difficult line to walk for a Good deity. It's also hard to not like a god that gives you Fireball.

Shelyn is just wonderful and I love the interplay of her church with Zon-Kuthon.

Cayden Cailean is just a fun concept and lends himself very well to adventurer worshipers.

I admire the writing of many of the Evil deities as well. There are reasons that a character could turn to Urgathoa, Lamashtu, Zon-Kuthon, or Asmodeus without being capital E Evil. (At least at first. That's how they get you.)

I love this idea! It's really the sweet spot of d20 power levels.

Also more 11-20 Adventure Paths, please!

I've written some random encounter tables for the entire dungeon, so I figured I would share!

If you're playing at the table, I recommend using the Angry GM's Tension Pool mechanic for random encounters. Since I'm playing on VTT, I just roll a 60% of encounter check roughly once per hour in the dungeon (max 2 rolls per long rest inside the dungeon), or when my players do something particularly noisy or stupid.

I've kept the encounters fairly tame, as I find the threat of a random encounter is usually enough to get my players to behave. The encounters could certainly be beefed up some more if your players stop being afraid of them.

Floor 1 - Gauntlight Keep
1-10 Snapping Turtle
11-30 1d4 Mitflits
31-50 1d2 Giant Maggots
61-70 Ball Python
71-80 Giant Frog
81-90 Freznelkesh (no encounter if she is killed)
90-100 Roll on Floor 2 table

Floor 2 - Servant's Quarters
1-10 Roll on Floor 1 Table
21-30 Corpselight
31-40 1d4 Rat Swarms
41-50 Choker
51-60 1d4 Morlocks
61-70 1d2 Morlock Engineers
71-80 Morlock Engineer & 1d4 Morlock Scavengers
81-90 1d2 Hunting Spiders
91-100 Roll on Floor 3 Table

Floor 3 - Library
1-10 Roll on Floor 2 Table
11-20 Gibbering Mouther (from Area C40, remove if killed)
21-30 1d4+1 Ghouls
31-40 1d2 Canker Cultists
41-50 Canker Cultist & 1d4 Ghouls
51-60 1d2 Cave Fishers
61-70 1d2 Corpselights
71-80 Ghast
81-90 Ghoul Crocodile
91-100 Roll on Floor 4 Table

Floor 4 - Belcorra's Retreat
1-10 Roll on Floor 3 Table
11-20 1d4 Corpselights
21-40 1d4 Flickerwisps
41-50 Namorrodor
51-60 1d2 Squirming Swill
61-70 Volluk Azrinae (no encounter if killed)
71-80 Vampiric Mist
81-90 1d4 Blindheims
91-100 Roll on Floor 5 Table

Floor 5 - Arena
1-10 Roll on Floor 4 Table
11-20 Gibbering Mouther
21-30 2 Basilisks (from area E10, remove if killed)
31-40 1d4 Skeletal Champions
41-50 Skeletal Mage
51-60 1d2 Grothluts
61-70 Will-o-Wisp
71-80 Otyugh
81-90 1d4 Flickerwisps
91-100 Roll on Floor 6 Table

Floor 6 - Fleshwarping Labs
1-10 Roll on Floor 5 table
11-20 Jafaki & Drider (remove if killed)
21-40 Seugathi Servant
41-50 1d2 Dreshkans
51-60 Drider
61-70 Will-o-Wisp
71-80 Mulventok
81-90 1d4 Shangriol Heaps
91-100 Roll on Floor 7 Table

Floor 7 - Prison
1-10 Roll on Floor 6 Table
11-20 Sacuishu (remove if killed)
21-30 1d3 Barbazus
31-40 Erinyes
41-50 Levaloch
51-60 1d3 Dreshkans
61-70 1d4+1 Grothluts
71-80 Will-o-Wisp
81-90 Gibbering Mouther
91-100 Roll on Floor 8 Table

Floor 8 - Farm
1-10 Roll on Floor 7 Table
11-20 Belcorra (no encounter if she is regenerating)
21-30 1d2 Chuul
31-40 1d4 Caligni Stalkers
41-50 1d4 Children of Belcorra
51-60 Elder Child of Belcorra
61-70 1d4 Drow Hunters
71-80 Drow Shootist
81-90 Dread Wisp
91-100 Roll on Floor 9 Table

Floor 9 - Hunting Grounds
1-7 Roll on Floor 8 Table
8-14 Belcorra (no encounter if she is regenerating)
15-22 Riding Lizard (reduce Yldaris population if killed)
23-37 Salaisa Malthulas & 1d4 Drow Wardens (from I12 & I14)
38-45 2 Drow Shootists (reduce Yldaris population if killed)
46-53 2 Caligni Defenders (reduce Caligni population if killed)
54-61 2 Urdefhan Death Scouts & 2 Urdefhan lashers (reduce Urdefhan population if killed)
62-76 4 Urdefhan Warriors & 2 Ceustodaemons (reduce Urdefhan population if killed)
77-83 Urdefhan Blood Mage & 3 Tormentors (from area I35)
84-91 Cauthooj (from area I41)
92-100 Ravirex (from area I51)

2 sessions in and the players are most of the way to Level 2. They've missed a lot of secret doors and investigation spots. They glommed onto Boss Skrawng's map pretty hard and haven't even noticed the outbuildings and extra doors that he didn't draw. I'm afraid none of them are even going to roll high enough to find the secret door down to Level 2.

The Corpselights are a pretty nasty fight for first level characters! My party decided to half-ass running away when they realized that the things did a huge amount of damage, and it ended with a Corpselight using its cone attack while they were clumped up for a TPK. (I was also a little mean to them and started them at night, so it may have been a little more difficult than intended.) The party had broken through the stained glass window and were outside, so I had Wrin drag them back to town instead of making everyone roll new characters.

Having a blast so far!

I rage-quit Kingmaker permanently sometime in Act 4 of that game, but I'm really enjoying Wrath of the Righteous.

I agree that the difficulty settings are kind of misleading (enemies have to be set to "weaker" to even come close to their Pathfinder stats). There are enough settings that I have tweaked the game to where it's fun for me, at least.

The companion writing is decidedly improved, which probably makes the biggest impact of anything in the game. That and turn based mode. I cannot stand RTwP.

Only complaints so far is that Crusade mode sucks and can't be turned off without losing access to stuff (but at least there's difficulty settings and auto-resolve to take care of that...), and the game has too many trash fights.

Also, the crystal enemies have been patched so that you're immune to their aura after a successful save now.

I'm generally more interested in the Adventure Paths that have a weird theme, in contrast to Cydeth. (Although one of my favorites is still Curse of the Crimson Throne, and that doesn't have a unifying theme.) To me, so far, there's nothing in 2e that hits quite the same as Ruins of Azlant, Skull & Shackles, or Strange Aeons. The themes of the 2e adventures have felt somewhat... generic?

Maybe I should read through Fists of the Ruby Phoenix. I'm not terribly interested in a martial arts tournament campaign, but maybe it's better in practice than what I'm imagining.

I think my players at this point would riot if we started another campaign below level 5, so I'll ask for more high-level adventures, please.

Kobolds most commonly share the coloration and some physical resemblance to chromatic and metallic dragons, but others closely match different sets of true dragons—notably esoteric, imperial, planar, and primal dragons. In Tian Xia, kobolds with an imperial dragon appearance are nearly as common as those with chromatic and metallic features, and often take roles as advisors and spellcasters. Planar and primal kobolds sometimes hatch when a settlement is in great danger or exposed to planar energies, and are often considered to be destined for greatness. Esoteric kobolds are rare anywhere, though they appear more regularly in places with strange energies (such as the Impossible Lands), and are often feared and mistrusted by their clutchmates.

Yes, Kobolds can be modeled after different dragons. There aren't stats for the different types of dragons in the Ancestry Guide, though. You'd probably have to homebrew it based on the dragon stats, or reflavor the given stats for breath weapons.

Of the ones I've actually played (which is sadly not many!), Curse of the Crimson Throne #2 "Seven Days to the Grave." It has a strong theme, there's a little almost-sandbox with a few missions for the party to choose from in the middle, and the finale dungeon is interesting and the right amount of challenging.

Roughly where India would be, translated to Golarion. It's off the edge of the map to the East for the standard Inner Sea Region map.

I don't think there are any barriers to playing a Vudrani character, other than the distance. You can take Vudrani as a language and that should cover you.

There hasn't been a lot of focus on Vudra in previous books, since it's outside the Inner Sea region. You might also want to look at Jalmeray, which is part of the Inner Sea Region, but also "Vudra-ish."

Curse of the Crimson Throne prominently features a Blue dragon. But there's also a Black dragon in a boss fight in one of the later books.

I think your assessment is correct, here. Since Eldritch Shot makes only one attack roll and there is no spell attack roll, Sneak Attack applies only once.

I can't speak to RAI, but it would strike me as strange to have Sneak Attack apply more than once to a single attack. Maybe that's just 1e experience speaking, though.

Multiclassing is very good. (As is taking any Archetype, now that the APG is out.)

There are some classes that have poor feat options at certain levels. The early levels for Champions or Leaf Druids are good examples. You can gain a lot of benefit and flavor by dipping into an archetype to gain something that better fleshes out your build, like one of the weapon styles, some spellcasting, or even unique abilities from another class.

Multiclassing is currently the best way to build a character that can use weapons and magic. Multiclassing can get you a respectable number of spells from 2 or even 3 traditions. Multiclassing can get you Inspire Courage, Sneak Attack, or Rage.

It's not mandatory by any means, but it is a very good option, and can be useful to nearly any character.

Ascalaphus wrote:

The problem with Mastermind is the Additional Knowledge clause of Recall Knowledge;

Additional Knowledge wrote:

Sometimes a character might want to follow up on a check to Recall Knowledge, rolling another check to discover more information. After a success, further uses of Recall Knowledge can yield more information, but you should adjust the difficulty to be higher for each attempt. Once a character has attempted an incredibly hard check or failed a check, further attempts are fruitless—the character has recalled everything they know about the subject.

It raises a bunch of questions, such as "can you Recall Knowledge against city guard #2 after you already did it on city guard #1?" and "what if you encountered the same city guards in the previous encounter, because this adventure recycles statblocks"?

When I GM, I interpret that clause about Additional Information above being relevant only when a player was doing a second (or greater) recall knowledge check on the exact same creature with the express intent of learning more than the first time they succeed.

Doing a new check on guard 2 might not result in the same info from guard 1. If I'm doing it, I'm spending the action to assess the target -- if I get the exact same info that's fine and that way it doesn't lock out the player from what they're pretty clearly intended to do. The ranger with Monster Hunter or the Investigator have similar powers that trigger off of Hunt Prey and Design a Stratagem and I've never seen a GM not let them roll new knowledge checks to trigger their powers.

Even if Guard 1 and Guard 2 survive and we fight them later, I have no reason as a player to know that they have not improved their skills. I can still spend my action to assess them. I may not learn anything more, but I would probably recognize "oh right, he leans left, I can make him flatfooted."

Agree with this.

I also thought the Mastermind Rogue was more a Sherlock Holmes-esque instant psychoanalysis, at least for humanoid creatures. Maybe I just like the flavor of the Rogue looking at City Guard #2, saying "You're right about your wife and the baker," and the target being so distraught that the Rogue gets sneak attack.

cavernshark wrote:

Ascalaphus wrote:

War Priest

The only full caster that can get into EA at any reasonable level, but your proficiency in bows never advances beyond Expert. So delivering spells by bow vs. just casting them isn't really that much of a difference.

That's not entirely true. By the time this matters (level 11+), you'll be getting the item bonus on your strike from +2 potency runes. That's like having the equivalent accuracy that a Master proficiency spell caster would have for spells with attack rolls. That said, the divine list is a little weak on spells that work well with Eldritch Shot so your mileage may vary based on ability to poach from other lists from your deity or other feats like adaptive cantrip. Gisher has a list he's been floating around.

Plus, you can boost your accuracy even further since you can cast Heroism on yourself. Warpriests can be deceptively accurate, depending on the kinds of spells they prepare.

That could be a fun build for a Cleric of Erastil. Erastil even has the Earth domain, for picking up an additional Focus Spell you can use with Eldritch Shot.

I like that the Eidolon is a large part of how the character works and will be present almost all the time (and even helpful for exploration). I like that Eidolons can be dragons, spirits, outsiders, elementals, fey, and/or animals. I like that the Summoner preserves the idea of having a character casting buffs onto a mostly-martial eidolon, without overpowering other characters. I like that the Eidolon and Summoner share HP and actions.

UnArcaneElection wrote:

^Sounds like Nidal might have a problem with tooth decay, and Andoran might be developing a problem with cardiovascular disease.

Welll, don't ignore the Nidalese taste for horse-dairy. Milk is quite basic and can serve to reduce that risk some. I can also imagine that the Nidalese might welcome tooth pain the way some Catholics wear cilices to cause constant pain or discomfort, even into light abscess territory. Nonetheless, Nonetheless, I would imagine that the Nidalese practice dental cleaning of the sort described by Hieronymus Fabricius on Earth in the late 16th century, and use rosemary charcoal to clean their teeth more regularly. (thanks for inspiring me to google "Renaissance dental hygiene", btw)

Seems obvious to me that the Nidalese would invent dentistry. Who else is going to stick a bunch of pointy metal implements in your mouth and admonish you for bleeding?

Love this thread, by the way, especially the point about the trade routes to Tian Xia. Such a simple change from Earth and the consequences are that the Vikings have noodles instead of the Italians. Fascinating!

A vital difference from 1e that my group missed - touch spells don't require an attack roll to touch the target. Many touch spells just automatically target the saves.

You can usually touch the target automatically, though the spell might specify that the target can attempt a saving throw or that you must attempt a spell attack roll.

Idea: Wild Shape Abusing Martial Artist

Ah, the songbird of doom build is back.

Having seen a Crossbow+Animal Companion Ranger in play, I have to note that it stretches the action economy thin. You have to spread your actions between Hunt Prey, Reloading, Striking, and Commanding your companion. You can't do all of those in 1 turn, and that means you're going to have to give up attacking on some turns to get your companion out of danger, or let your companion take a hit to get an important shot. This eventually frustrated our Ranger so much that he just retrained into using a regular bow.

But why is a cop so much worse than a pirate or an assassin or a necromancer or a vigilante or a soldier or any of the other roles and classes we are given to play?

Pathfinder is generally a game about killing things and taking their stuff. This isn't a bad thing, usually. In fact, everyone here enjoys Pathfinder. But I'd guess that 75% of the system is built around combat and loot. That will necessarily shape the way you can interact with things in the system.

Playing an evil character may be uncomfortable for some people, but there is not a real-world rash of devil worshipers committing crimes against the populace. If there was, I probably wouldn't want to play that AP, either.

There's an extra level of distaste specifically because cops are involved that wouldn't be there otherwise. The real-world problems with policing are the same things that Pathfinder is built around, and that makes me deeply uncomfortable. Even if we discount the police violence that's happened recently (of which there are too many examples), we get into asset forfeiture, protecting the guys on your "side" no matter what, and the long legacy of policing issues being ignored by the majority.

It's not the concept of doing bad things, it's the concept of doing bad things while you're supposed to be protecting the people you're harming. It's that stacked on top of these issues existing right now and for far too long in our society. It's that playing a good cop is feeding into the copaganda problem.

The idea of swapping out the player characters' role to private investigators makes the AP a lot less distasteful to me.

I don’t spend much time on Reddit, but what I saw on here and Discords was varying amounts of “meh”, especially following Extinction Curse.

I was pretty excited for the adventure path before the protests started. I prefer urban adventures and I've been wanting to play a follower of Abadar for a while, so it sounded interesting. The murder of George Floyd and everything that's followed makes my stomach turn at the thought of playing a fictional officer now, though.

As a side note, I have been following this thread and I really appreciate the thoughtful discussion. I hope we hear from Paizo soon.

AnimatedPaper wrote:

Edit: The reason I bring this up is that, currently, if you wanted Double Slice as a non-fighter, you have to pick up both the fighter dedication AND basic maneuver, which would make the Two Weapon dedication more efficient than the fighter dedication if you did not need or want martial weapons training. But starting the Two Weapon at 4 gives you at least an equal trade between the two options, and starting at 6 protects Double Slice as a fighter only choice for several levels.

I suspect that is intentional. The value proposition to take Fighter multiclass for a character already happy with their weapon proficiencies just isn’t there. I understand niche protection, but presumably that has been expanded to this Archetype. There is no need for an equal trade between the two options. If there was, why bother making a separate dedication? Just have people go Fighter MC. And lets say you want Double Slice AND attack of opportunity? Looks like you will take the Fighter Dedication regardless.

Exactly this. I find the weapon style archetypes interesting because one of my characters was a TWF Barbarian. Barbarian has absolutely no support for TWF, so I ended up multiclassing Fighter to get Double Slice. Fighter dedication, and even other Fighter feats, generally gives you nothing as a Barbarian.

Gaulin wrote:

Still hoping for a weapon summoning archetype. By my count, we've had 19 archetypes spoiled so far (out of 40). That being said, the eldritch archetypes might be able to summon a weapon, or maybe the focus spells a ranger get... not to mention any of the additional class options.

Even if we don't get it this time around, it's only a matter of time. I know it's a popular hope. And the way Paizo listens to its playerbase, it won't be long!

Summoning Weapons if it can be done turn to turn can be extremely strong just for the sheer fact that traits provide so many options.

That’d be a super awesome concept for the magus to get if it eventually came.

Well... the Shifting rune already exists?

I'm pretty excited about these dudes being playable soon. Also, I'm impressed that you guys are going out of your way to give the "savage" ancestries a lot more depth. Kudos.

Yeah, it's really cool to see that even the "obscure" races have their cultural history detailed out. It lends a lot more verisimilitude to the setting.

I am really enjoying all of Liane's flash fiction pieces. Time to go find those novels I guess!

Seconded! She packs a lot of vivid description and emotion into these short pieces. I hadn't heard of her before, but these have gotten me interested in her writing.

Problem is that we are missing a lot of customization options. So they need to publish the basic material.

This.

I can guarantee that if Paizo wasn't publishing at this rate, we'd have a "should Paizo speed up" thread instead.

Thebazilly wrote:

Val'bryn2 wrote:

Besides, half the people on here are screaming dark is not evil, but I don't see them having a problem with how demons and drow have darkness as a spell like ability, amongst other evil races. Should we replace it with Daylight?

Darkness being evil is not the problem. Black skin being evil is a problem.

That is why Paizo changed it, because the concept of black skin being evil is tied to a lot of real-world racial history that is deeply offensive.

If you and your players do not find that offensive, go ahead and play whatever color drow you want. Nobody else cares. Paizo as a company cannot publish something as offensive as elven blackface in an official book. If you don't understand that, I can't help you.

Except it's not for the Duergar who are all black/ashen, and all evil. Drow didn't even have real-life skin tones previously. It's not tied to melanin levels as it is in real life. Black humans aren't inherently or perceived as evil. And there are other problematic areas that aren't touched, so it's a shallow change.

You've been missing the point and continuing to argue with every single post anyone else makes for 5 pages now, so I don't expect that anything I say will get through to you.

Duergar are depicted as gray in the Bestiary, and have always been gray in Paizo products as far as I am aware.

Pure black is not a real life skin tone but it was used in blackface depictions - literally white people painting themselves pure black to mock black slaves. I shouldn't have to explain why this should be avoided.

The presence or absence of other problematic elements in the setting has no bearing on this singular change. Paizo chose to remove this problematic element. Perhaps they will remove others later on.

Besides, half the people on here are screaming dark is not evil, but I don't see them having a problem with how demons and drow have darkness as a spell like ability, amongst other evil races. Should we replace it with Daylight?

Darkness being evil is not the problem. Black skin being evil is a problem.

That is why Paizo changed it, because the concept of black skin being evil is tied to a lot of real-world racial history that is deeply offensive.

If you and your players do not find that offensive, go ahead and play whatever color drow you want. Nobody else cares. Paizo as a company cannot publish something as offensive as elven blackface in an official book. If you don't understand that, I can't help you.

The D20 dice is the master of all things. If you got poor rolls, with bounded accuracy, you will be in a lot of pain. You can't maximize enough to protect you from bad rolls.

Oh boy is that the truth. 4 sessions in and all the players have been having a streak of bad luck, while the GM has been rolling hot. (Last night, nobody rolled above a 5 for at least an hour, while the GM rolled 3 critical attacks in a row.)

It was so demoralizing we had to stop the session halfway through.

Arachnofiend wrote:

FrostFox wrote:

Arachnofiend wrote:

Color theory is a generalization that has been pounded into our heads so much that some people are fool enough to take it as unilateral fact

For example, yellow is supposed to represent positivity and joy, but too much yellow makes me want to kill people.

So you posit that color theory is pounded into us, and not culturally or psychologically relevant?

I posit that that pounding informs the culture and psychology. You are not immune to propaganda

And yet the perceptions are largely the same across worldwide cultures. Blue is comforting because the sky is blue and we are diurnal animals. The Dark is frightening because we cannot see in it. Certainly it's not locked in stone, but to say it isn't impactful itself is ignorant.

The concept of "blue" doesn't even exist in some worldwide cultures. Some African languages call the sky white and the rivers black. The Ancient Greeks referred to the sea as wine colored.

Color based symbolism is not as objective as you think it is.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Drow should be the color of blind cave salamanders and I will GM fiat whatever the books say anyway.

I would be good with that.

blind cave salamander coloring: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_salamander#/media/File:Speleomantes_supr amontis02.jpg

That salamander clearly has functional eyes.

You're looking for this one.