Living Bonfire allows the Kineticist to "summon" a proxy bonfire that from which it can use their Elemental Blast from. Whenever they do, their wood (vitality/bludgeoning) Elemental Blast deal an additional d6 fire damage. Okay!
Now, if I were to use Two-Element Infusion with an Elemental Blast coming from a Living Bonfire, I'd be using the highest damage die between fire and wood. Fire does d6, wood does d8, so it's wood's.
First question: What exactly are we rolling? Either a d8 bludgeoning damage die that deals half of its damage as fire, or an untyped d8 damage die that deals half bludgeoning and half fire damage. Correct? Since neither of these two possibilities aren't a fire damage die, it can't trigger the fire impulse juction, I think. Okay. Even if that isn't the case, infusion is defined as such:
Infusion:
Actions with the infusion trait tweak your kineticist impulses. You must use an infusion action directly before the impulse action you want to alter. If you use any action (including free actions and reactions) other than an impulse action directly after, you waste the benefits of the infusion action. Any additional effects added by an infusion action are part of the impulse's effect, not of the infusion action itself.
And it says as such when you gain your junctions:
"In addition, you gain an impulse junction, a benefit that occurs when you use an impulse of the chosen element that takes 2 actions or more. This happens before the other effects of the impulse, unless noted otherwise. You can gain only one impulse junction per round; they are described in full below."
Fire junction doesn't detail when its effects happens, so the junction happens before any of the impulse's effects. As such, really, fire junction can't work in any infusion. Right?
But what about the additional d6 from Living Bonfire? Would its die be increased by the fire junction impulse? Is its additional die considered "other effects of the impulse"? Is the intention of the fire junction to only work with the base fire Elemental Blast, then?
We've been told that this edition will focus on ranged combat (or something akin to that, I don't remember the verbatim :B).
What are your thoughts on it, from what we've been shown?
Personally, I remember been told exactly that when I set up to GM Against the Aeon Throne (by people, not necessarily any devs) and feeling confused when players would slog through fights with actual hits turning to 1 or 2 damage, until it got to the melee combatant's turn so they could actually strike down the enemy.
I do really like the idea of the game having a focus on ranged combat, though, and I hope it comes through fun.
EDIT: Just to clarify something real quick, I did only GM the first book of Against the Aeon Throne and haven't had the chance to interact with the game again, so I'm unsure if my impression would've changed on later levels.
Paizo is slowly revealing which deities are safe through the beautifully written Godsrain Prophecies, and I'm wondering about people's thoughts on which ten deities will have their status remain a mystery by the end of these revelations. For those who are unaware, Paizo will only reveal the safety of ten deities, so another ten will still be in danger until the actual reveal.
If our party kineticist uses Tree Sentinel to put down a level-three Protector Tree, and then everyone in the party hurdles around it, and then the evil baddie casts Fireball on all of us - what happens to the Tree?
It doesn't reduce people's incoming damage, of course, but is it damaged by the fireball? Why, and how?
Hi, friends! We’re nearing the end of a personal arc of one of my players' character, and her character is going through a crisis of faith, of sorts. By the way, I’m not asking for mechanical advice!
The player herself is absolutely great, new to TTRPGS but has taken a deep dive into the lore, as has been able to establish interesting bonds with her fellow PCs in-character extremely well, even though her character herself is pretty unfriendly.
Anyways, she asked me help to sort a potential new religion for her character, something that fits what she is going through. She herself isn’t sure what new deity could entice her PC right now, but her PC is deeply religious and has always needed faith to keep her stable: Plus, she’d love if I could make her involvement with this new religion a small thing or something, and I’d be happy to oblige, to be honest. Knowing her, she’ll play along with whatever I throw.
Here is the thing: I got nada! I have no idea at all. So, I’d hope to throw some details about her character and maybe you guys could throw some suggestions my way? I'm going to spoiler the information about her as to not make the post too wall of text-ey, but I'll also offer and tl;dr below.
More info on the character:
Her character, Asmodia, has a very oppressive childhood, being a minor noble from Cheliax. Her father, an asmodean lawyer, attempt to develop her small innate magic (she is an arcanist, if relevant) with very cruel methods, but ultimately, she herself didn’t have any incredible latent magic hidden in her or anything like that. She grew to become bitter and bratty, with a sharp sarcastic tongue. She was then sent to many wizarding schools, where she failed to attend to class; partially because she refused to cooperate with her father’s wished, and also because she was heavily depressed.
She eventually was sent back home, where she plotted to have her father framed against the Church of Asmodeus: And managed to do it! But accidentally, not only her father was executed, but she got herself exiled from the Infernal nation. She eventually finds herself in Varisia, meets one of the PCs, and that’s it!
Her character started being very, well, hateful. She found that strength was one own’s responsibility, and those weak deserved what happened to them. With time, as she hung around the group, her views softened. First, she grew impatient with what she perceived to be the passivity of the victims that they helped, but she eventually grew invested in the dynamic. That those to be blamed are not the weak themselves, but those that choose to use their own strength to abuse others.
She still very much sees the world through these strength-weak lenses, but is slowly adopting the idea that the place of strong is to, effectively, protect and empower the weak.
Because of her own culture, she’s has always been asmodean herself. Although she had always found the most cruel points of the faith distasteful or inelegant (she started the game being Lawful Neutral, she’s not a cleric at all), she still appreciated the rigid society that Asmodeus seemed to promote, with a hierarchy that reinforces its tyrannical structures well. To her, following Asmodeus was about never letting yourself fall within the hierarchy and keeping yourself strong and witty.
But she isn’t feeling a connection with Asmodeus’s ideas anymore, and this has become evident in this last arc, where the group is dealing a group of fervent Asmodeans. She is also pretty lawful, appreciating a need for control and not losing oneself to its ugliest emotions, comparing such thing to reducing oneself to an animal.
TL;DR Player’s character, chelish arcanist, is losing faith in Asmodeus, and player wants me to make a thing of her next religious connection. Happy to do it. She views the world through the lenses of strong and weak, but now believes that the strong must protect the weak, and dislikes lacking control. Dunno what deity could work with the character’s views, need suggestions.
Hi, friends! First and foremost, I hope you’re all having a nice day.
The infamous Hellknights are knightly orders that base themselves in the strictures of Hell as to bring absolute peace to Golarion. Each order concerns themselves with different objectives. The Order of the Scourge hunt those who hide behind perverted laws, the Order of the Rack seek to destroy unnecessary knowledge, etc. Many orders have undeniable ties to Cheliax, and especially to Cheliax’s infernal queen.
Last session, an argument ensued at the table. I had noticed that one of my players — a friend — had a very negative view of the Hellknights. Personally, I really like them, so I decided to prod.
To them, most of the order’s undeniable relationship with Thrune paints them in a very bad light. They use fear as their weapon and mercilessness is a part of the Chain, a philosophy that they follow. When I mentioned that LG Hellknights do exist, he wondered how that was even possible.
Take the famous Maidrayne Vox. She already is part of an order with potentially problematic connotations. Then, there’s also the fact that she only is Mistress of Blades! That means that she is subservient to the Lictor, who is LE.
How does that happen? When the Lictor orders Maidrayne to commit an evil act for law's sake — what happens then?
The caveat here is that the Measure, the actual laws that they are supposed to follow, are an open-ended narrative resource. That means, we don’t know what laws they actually follow. I was under the impression that these are based on Hell's, but information on the Character’s Guide is sparse. My impression from what I’ve read is that they are inspired by Hell’s stricture, specifically, and… That’s it, actually. But back to the Measure: It’s completely possible that the actual laws are Lawful Neutral in nature. That way, no matter the hierarchy, if all members are subject to the same law — If the Order of the Nail’s Lictor can’t just order torture to happen as to extract information from a target, then that changes everything. But we don’t know that!
In the end of our discussion, my friend believed that Hellknights are merely not that consistent, and they absolutely should be a LE organization, with maybe a few LN members, and mostly for very evil baddies, because that's how they make sense (to them). I think differently: I believe these open ended resources are there to not boggle down page count for otherwise very unimportant bits. I mean, imagine if Paizo actually published the entirety of the Measure! But as such, we do have to take what information is given to us, as — … wait for it — law. And the Character Guide does say that there’s a place for morality in the order… Even if they wield fear as a weapon and have this very specific interpretation of mercilessness as part of the Chain. It’s… Strange to me though, how a lawful good character be part of an organization whose plenty of orders associate themselves to Thrune, for example. Actually, are the orders independent of each other? Would a member of the Order of Torrent not be morally bothered by the actions of another more evil-leaning order?
Honestly, I’m just hoping that people will spitball interesting thoughts about hellknights. And maybe getting a 202, because I do feel something is missing. What do you think?
Knee-jerk reactions are pretty common through life, especially towards change™. Unfortunately, I tend to judge things very impulsively but, because I am aware of that, I also make a conscious effort to keep an open mind when dealing, talking or interacting about something that I think that I am not into.
I found myself going through that a few good times during my experiences with the game. In this vein, I’m wondering if I’m alone — or if you, too, judged something in particular too quickly about the game, but then grew to like it.
To me for example, that was the influence subsystem! Well, technically it’s pretty much translated from the first edition, but still. I was very confused by the mere need of rules for intrigue, but I gotta say: As far as structured social rules around influencing and schmoozing goes, it plays really great! The only downside is that influence statblocks require some good work. My players just finished participating in this party, where there were… 14 relevant, influenceable NPCs? And I think I had to nail down two or one and a half hours of scribbling per day for three weeks, to get them all ready. But, I mean… There’s no fix for that, ofc. :B
What about you? Did some part of the game surprise you more than you expected, and why?
Hi, hello, and how are you! Wherever you are, and whatever you’re up to, I do hope you’re having a nice day.
In the second edition of Pathfinder, it’s heavily implied that the protagonists are expected to become greater and more powerful heroes (or villains!) as they progress in their story: I don’t think anyone will object to that. At the highest levels, some might disappear in plain sight, decode terminology in a way that no language is a barrier to you, literally scare someone to death, and etc.
To contextualize everyone on the discussion, my first experience with this edition was playing Age of Ashes. I played it with a Wizard, it was great fun, etc. But I remember taking particular notice at how the GM tended to describe things. At the first levels, no heads were chopped, no eyes were hit by an arrow. In fact, a critical hit by our determined fighter translated to him “merely” piercing an enemy’s stomach with his greatsword. Any time my mousey wizard casted spells, she would awkwardly rip off a page off her grimoire and throw in the air as she recited the spell, only for an arcane symbol on the page to shine bright and for the spell to be casted from there.
Yet, as we leveled up, things changed. I think it was around level ten more or less that things started to get more fantastical. Suddenly, our fighter would leap against a big enemy, and his might was such that the floor below him would crumble. When my wizard casted Chain Lightning for the first time, an arcane circle made of electricity formed in front of her as she recited her verbal components, the light around it dimming momentarily as sparks flew around the room: The lightning discharging from the arcane circle itself with a thunderous noise, dissolving it as well as it shot towards my targets.
Honestly, I didn’t quite pick up the GM’s descriptions until very recently: Instead, I unconsciously adopted his same style and just noticed it yesterday, after a session with another group ended, where I am the GM. My players faced a firewyrm, and while I do let my own players usually describe some of their kills, sometimes I take over. For a long time, the monk player has been finishing his targets off by ora ora ora-ing them, and that’s fine, but they just hit level 8 before this fight and I decided to describe it with the typical scene where the giant worm swallows the hero and then the hero kills it from its insides and then emerges victorious on its blood(or hardened lava, in this case). After the game, this player said it was a very cool moment and he, as a GM, had never described something so fantastical.
So, with all of that in mind, here is the discussion: Do you, as a GM, make a point of describing things progressively more, as this player of mine put it, “fantastical”? Would any of you say that there’s a danger there, with expectations clashing with mechanics? After all, theoretically, any incredible feat is codified in a permissive way, so it wouldn’t be too crazy to say that feats like that are exceptions rather than reinforcements. *and by “feat” in this instance I mean it as something that a person does, not the mechanical term feat.
And, if that is the case, would you like to see more fantastical (mechanical) feats like that? I just took a look at the skill feats list and I there actually isn’t many high-level skill feats, though they all seem to cater to that direction.
What about you, players? Would you as a player like having your actions described with such a growth, or do you rather keep yourself tied to a more grounded experience?
And now, to both: When, would you say, that this difference of description should occur, if at all? When should protagonists start to feel less more schmucks and more like adventurers, and then more like heroes?
If enough people Aid each other, we might be able to beat the DC required to make Paizo release the aforementioned already!
Jokes aside, honestly though — where are they! We've had four released new classes, two playtests for four classes to be released, and the Ancestry Guide right around the corner. Okay, it's not like the Ancestry Guide affects class archetypes too much but I mean, I would have assumed that they would be higher on the priority list?
I can't help but feel that by each new class that we get, it gets a tiny little harder or more complicated for class archetypes to not only be implemented, but to catch up to the current width of content. Does that make sense? As we get more classes, there's, well, more of them to cover.
Now! To be totally clear, I'm not against more classes being released! I really like them. This is pure curiosity and speculation. Now, getting back to it:
Like, yeah, obviously Paizo doesn't need to release class archetypes for all the classes at once, but I dunno. I guess I imagined them to be a pretty important part or facet of the current system, like ancestries, classes, items or well, the rest of the archetypes themselves. Though I guess class archetypes are technically a part of the archetype system, but hopefully you all get what I'm trying to say here. Maybe I'm afraid that class archetypes end up being just this tiny extra instead of something more important. Like optional rules.
I mean, we don't even know what they can look like! Will they completely change how a class is played? Shake things up? Or just make a tiny difference? We — Well, we don't know!
How would YOU like to see class archetypes be implemented? What do you think Paizo should avoid, what should they invest in, etc? Is there even a clear space for class archetypes, or do you think they will inevitably end up stepping on other mechanics's toes?
Would you rather have them be introduced in a single book, maybe mechanically almost exclusively for them, or are you okay with them being sporadically released in different books from the get go? Do you think that playtesting different ways or levels of their implementation would be a cool idea? What's your take?
A few weeks — or months — ago, some threads popped up over the PF2E subreddit questioning the quantity of combat encounters on Adventure Paths, and their impact on the final product. Unfortunately, the tone there got a little out of hand, but at the time I hoped that the discussion would maybe start in here as well where it could, hopefully, carry on a little more civilized, and potentially under the watch of more important observers.
Recently some posters in this thread pointed out that the reason behind the potential problem that OP brings up is the effective quantity of combat encounters. I quickly started to type a reply in the hopes of igniting this discussion, but halfway there I realized that it had the potential to derail the thread too much, especially because my concern doesn't have anything to do with how certain creatures are supposed to act or not in dungeons and proto-dungeons. So yeah, here I am, starting this thread. Be warned that there's a lot of text and maybe a tiny little rambling ahead lol
I also contemplated posting this on the APs forum, but this forum is busier and honestly, I think that the discussion ties more into the game itself than it might lead on initially.
Right off the bat let me start saying that I love the adventure paths that Paizo has put out. I've both GMed and played in a bunch of them, since the first edition, and they have given me so many memories! I appreciate them, a lot, for this.
So, on the discussion! There's a lot of things that this game does right. One of my favorite changes are how foes are made, and how they can be ran — As a GM, fighting feels... Well, fun! I have genuine fun having my players face a mere giant bat, or fight against a gelatinous cube, and that's because they feel so different from each other with their abilities and everything, including how "difficult" they can be. One of the problems that I had with the first edition is that there were way too many combat encounters in later books that summarized to players winning initiative and nuking enemies. Fights felt so low-stake when they were supposed to be high-stake that sometimes I really just wanted to say something akin to "You clash your weapons against each other, adjective verb adjective verb, and you emerge victorious, take xdx of damage and let's keep going". Which is big yikes, of course, since it created a big disconnect to the narrative side of the game, potentially: Where players would finally beat the macabre, dangerous and scary big bad in one single round. It felt, hmm, antithetical to what was supposed to happen. I personally remember playing my Arcanist and holding back specifically because I didn't want to cause that.
My skills as a GM aside: Something way more important that impacts how much fun I have, as a GM and as player, is pacing. And pacing is something hard to get.
Ideal pacing is, well, subjective. Some people like a lot of fighting encounters, while other people dislike having an entire chapter of pure rp. I suppose that egotistically, I hoped for this new edition to let go of the things that made so much of the fighting feel, well, _needed_. And that has been done to some extent, yes: There's an entire mode of play now that completely distances itself from fighting.
Yet Adventure Paths in this edition, at least both Age of Ashes and Extinction Curse which are the ones that I have experience with, seemed to have quickly adjusted to the same old pattern, which is having a lot of dungeoneering, and more fighting on top of that dungeoneering, which already includes combat encounters. They don't focus as much in the different modes of play.
Let's talk Extinction Curse, Book 1. For context!:
If you keep your eye on the PF2E subreddit, you might have noticed that from weeks to weeks a new thread pops up, confused or annoyed at the first book of the adventure path, The Show Must Go On. For those unaware but that are okay with some spoilers, the book has the players kind of take over the circus that they are a part of, and then while investigating the death of their leader, be roped in something way above their pay grade. Sounds pretty stereotypical, right? Interesting, too. And personally, expectations aside, it's a fantastic hack'n'slash, I feel.
Now to be honest, I feel like something went wrong in the marketing of this AP. At some point people started to call it "the circus AP", and then people obviously started to expect a focus on circus stuff. But the first book itself is a pure hack'n'slash, with fight after fight, and from there the circus just... Isn't too important again. Well, they do remain relevant for some time but yeah. There's a circus theme for sure, but the story doesn't commit to it at all. And from what I remember the Player's Guide do clarify that the story isn't about the circus? Though I'm not too sure.
Be it as it may, my theory is that people expected circus stuff, and they got a lot of fighting instead. But it was this,uh , [i]misexpectation[i],justified or not, that sparkled the thread that I mentioned in the beginning of my post.
A point that was brought up a lot, though, and I think that there's merit in it, is that there were a lot of irrelevant encounters that didn't really need to be there, and those encounters, and a lot of rooms in these dungeons, effectively occupied a space that could have been used for more lore, sidequests, and etc. Despite the focus on the importance of the Wayward Wonders being the PC's family in the player's guide, there's hardly any text dedicated to them in the first book. Is there really any need to put some random ghouls inside a closed off mausoleum in the Hermitage when there's performers that aren't even individually named?
So, what's the problem? Why the need for debate?
Personally, I'm curious to gauge how the community in here feels about all of this. Are you content with the structure of Adventure Paths concerning the amount of combat? There's this idea that Paizo produces the best pre-made adventures out there that was challenged during that conversation. Now, I'll repeat that I absolutely love how these adventures bring Golarion to life, and maybe differently than some other people I am very satisfied with the difficulty so far. Yet ultimately the inclusion of combat encounters and dungeons that are mostly used for more combat encounters usually means that page count goes up, and space for other stuff goes out.
Even the most considered rp-heavy APs aren't really that exempt of fighting bloat, though before PF2E coming out I would have said that that has to do with the fact that the game needs combat. Now I'm not so sure! As of now downtime has been very little featured, for example, if I'm not mistaken, and that has gotta be an intentional choice! Fighting is cool, and in PF2E, it's super fun. But it gets... Dense. Why not focus more on developing NPCs or reactivity, on twists, or evoking theme? Would it be a bad change? Sell badly?
Personally, I do like dungeons but like, not one after another after a whole chapter dedicated to fighting encounters. My favorite structure ever displayed on a Paizo adventure path is, personally, War for the Crown's second book; Songbird, Scion Saboteur.
War for the Crown's spoiler on Book 2:
Chapter one was dedicated to the intrigue subsystem, which felt fantastic and is sadly never revisited again, with the introduction of the bad guy in a civil setting and a lot of interesting npcs and events, chapter 2 opens the area up in a way that pcs can interact with many of the elements that they were introduced during chapter 1, and chapter 3 is the culmination the book, a dungeon, and it feels really cool.
So, what's your take? Is this whole thing bananas? Are things fine as they are? Would you feel curious if a Book, an entire book of an AP, had say less than, uh... I dunno. 20 or 30 encounters?
I’ve been invited to an Extinction Curse game that is going to start the next weekend, and the GM is actually a player of mine that decided to take a shot at GMing. Knowing of my interest over some of the evil deities of Golarion, he actually trusted me to play as a follower of one, as long as my character concept doesn’t clash with the adventure’s premise.
I’ve always liked Norgorber, and I remember trying to build a cleric of his over the first edition of Pathfinder and not being able to work it out. I decided to give it a shot again, and I guess that I’m invested already in the idea, but uhm...I feel like I’m not being able to make it come together.
I haven’t decided on a lot of specifics about my character herself, for now, but I would like for her to:
— Wield a short sword as her main weapon: I’m unfortunately the kind of person that really likes to use their deity’s favored weapon, no matter how not ideal they are. Shout out to my champion of Shelyn.
— Have a strong, mysterious presence: That’s mostly roleplay, but it would be nice to have some mechanical aspect backing this up in some form. I’d say that having a good deception and intimidation does the trick, right?
— Be able to be sneaky, and have some religious knowledge.
Follow the Reaper of Reputations: Yeah yeah, I know, the most morally gray.
Lean into his edicts and anathema.
So, after a loooot of reading,I’ve come up with two main options, that kinda break down in more, different options: I can either play as an actual Cleric, or pretend to be one.
As for being a Cleric:
— Cloist. Cleric feels like a good option, even if the most that I’m going to do with the short sword is look threateningly from a very safe distance. I’ve entertained the idea of MCing into an evil champion but hmmm, I don’t know. I don’t feel like followers of Norgorber would run around in anything more than light armor. Though really, a cleric of Norgorber would probably not want to look like a cleric of Norgorber.
— Warpriest. This would help me staying on the front but uhmmm… Idk. People say that the warpriest tends to fall behind later on.
— Rogue(Eldritch Trickster: Cleric). I wouldn’t have a lot of spells, though I could probably pull off being in the front. Also tons of skills, which seems in line with a Norgorberite. Also if I pick Wis as my class’s main ability I’d have like a huge perception, and be the bestest of doctors: and I guess that having that kind of anatomic knowledge can be thematic for a follower of Norgorber.
The biggest problem with any of these choices is that the build is so MAD. If we go with something like 12 str, 14 dex, 10 con, 10 int, 18 wis and 14 cha, then we’d be great at spell stuff and some very useful skills, but considering that the divine list is not the best for offense and that Norgorber’s domains also lean into the sneaky stuff instead of damage, I am low key fearing if going 18 wis is even that smart. Going Eldritch Trickster would help offset the 14 cha for example for some of the skills thanks to the obscene amount of skills that rogues get, so that’s cool!
Now, if I don’t go Cleric and just play pretend at being a Cleric…
— Scoundrel Rogue: It would make a nice debuffer, leaning into the presence thing too.
— Divine Sorcerer: Having CHA as a main attribute is nice for this, though she would be squishy I guess.
— Thief Rogue: Having a -1 in social skills vs being able to perform super well in melee combat is not something that should be ignored.
A-NY-WAYS.
Since I spent way too much time in this and also because I also think that I’m bad at character creation, I’ve come to the forum with a plight for help. Do you guys have any suggestions, preferences? I, like, don’t. Like, I really don’t, and that’s probably why I’m having such a hard time deciding this lol. Feel free to recommend anything that I haven’t considered before, including thematic feats, archetypes that fit, etc. I just want her to feel both thematic and like, useful.
So, just to make sure that I'm not getting the lore wrong: According to the LOWD, Aroden only raised the Isle of Kortos from the sea. Was Erran just there before then? And they started to become known as the Startsone Isles because of the Starstone, even though poor Erran was already there?
I'm asking because according to the PathfinderWiki, Aroden raised both. I know, or at least I think, that the wiki isn't run by Paizo or anything, but that led me to wonder if that little snippet is a retcon or something? Or I dunno... I guess I wanted some confirmation just in case, hahaha...
