King of Roses

Tristram's page

Goblin Squad Member. 168 posts. 1 review. 3 lists. No wishlists.



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Mad Beetle wrote:

The "Ancestry" system (I kinda hate the word, dunno if it is me being a grognard and prefering Races, but hell that´s a whole other bugbear to shave.) is really an gem in the rough.

While they have taken the various races and made them into bland, uninteresting choices of wheather you want a +5 movement speed or +2 health on top of a static stat increase and small penalty, you get to evolve into an actual elf... over the next 17 levels.

If they had just started us out with an actual dwarf, gnome or elf to begin with, and then given us interesting cultural and/or special racial abilities (Expanded spell-lists, special combat stances, super-humanly good sigth/hearing/smelling) then I would have been clapping my hands and praising the "Heritage Feat" system to the heavens, and then left for some other thing to nit-pick over or tear apart for being non-sensical.

As I said, a gem in the rough, with some actual great potential for customizing your characters heritage and implementing things like gnomish tieflings and goblin aasimars down the road. If they cut the gem right.

I wholeheartedly second this. Reading through it today I definitely felt like many of the ancestries were too watered-down at 1st level and that the feats often did little to excite me. But it's early on, so there's still plenty of time to test out thing and tweak them.

I'm almost wondering if either granting more ancestry feats at 1st level would be a good idea or if baking-in more racial traits would be more straight-forward. I'm toying with the idea of 1st level having 2 Ancestry feats, 1 Class feat, and 1 "Anything" feat.


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PossibleCabbage wrote:

I feel like if you wanted to play a low Int Wizard, the way to justify it is as someone who found their way into wizarding for reasons other than their natural talents (e.g. they came from a wizarding family and it was expected of them).

But once you've already found something you're good at, and have specialized in it, it's not really clear why you'd want to branch out into a thing you're not particularly well equipped for, instead of focusing on what you can do well.

Insatiable curiosity? Drive to learn the ways of your enemies? A new outlook on life? Your god told you to?


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This is just when using a feat to block the blow (as opposed to just increasing AC), correct?


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Rek Rollington wrote:
I was concerned when I heard you needed to know a spell at a higher level to cast it there so spontaneous heightening is a relief. But what is the logic behind them not being able to do this all the time? Is it too much of an advantage over a wizard or does it present too many options to a player when selecting which spell to cast?

That would be my guess; total spontaneity would give a lot of flexibility, possibly too much for balance purposes.


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pauljathome wrote:

That is pretty unusual. If the full caster is a D8 class that still means that the caster has to have a Con stat THREE higher than the fighter. And for a d6 class that means FIVE higher.

Most games I've seen the martials take a LOT more damage than the casters (that is part of their job) and the casters only really take damage from AofE type stuff and the occassional ambush.

Don't get me wrong, my casters have at LEAST a con of 12 before belts (and I try really hard to get them to 14), their favoured class bonus in hit points and often have toughness. Hit points ARE important, they're the defense of last resort. But they still have a LOT less hit points than the martials.

No offense, but that math is way off. A d6 has an average of 3.5, a d10 an average of 5.5. A Con bonus two higher brings you to match them on average. And since casters are not concerned as much about needing to boost their other ability scores, they can literally go all in on the two scores when it comes to stat allocation and magic items. I currently have a Dwarf wizard with the second most HP in the party. (I'm beat by a barbarian with more Con than Str)


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QuidEst wrote:
If they come out with a Prestidigitation-focused archetype, I'm probably not playing anything else.

I can already see it, prestidigitation to perform combat maneuvers/tricks, provide tools, etc.

Flummox your foes with a phantasmagoria of phenomena! Amaze your allies with assistance of an awesome nature!


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QuidEst wrote:

*basks in the new information*

I wonder if Prestidigitation gets any heighten effects.

More effects at once/stacking the same type effect in multiple way!? You could put on quite a show if so.

I'm all for this system, it pulls everything together in nice universal bundle.

However, I do feel like Heal could be written with slightly more clarity (or an example box of two & three action castings at a higher level). We've all had those moments where we had a brain fart and forgot how math worked, it could also help newer players out.


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I'm sure this is going to be the hot topic throughout the weekend.

After the Goblin preview, I was hoping that the Halfling and Gnome previews would reveal some changes to ability scores. High charisma for all of the small races definitely seems bland, particularly when their flavor could support other stats. Goblins with +2 Dex/Int and -2 Wis, Halflings instead getting a Wis bonus, something could stand to be changed in order to differentiate the small races.

Edit: Two thumbs way up for weapon damage sizes being merged!


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I really like this change to how alchemists work with alchemical items, it's very interesting.

That said, I'm starting to get concerned about how far back abilities are being pushed. Three classes in and it's starting to feel like abilities are coming online well later than we'd expect. This is a gripe I've always had with some classes/archetypes/builds in 3.5/PF1e, that it takes so much time and effort to get to the mechanics to fit concepts that aren't really that out there.

I'm reaaaaally hoping that abilities aren't being spread around to the point were it takes until mid-levels to feel like the adventurer concept you had at 1st level.

But like I've said before, we won't know until the playtest releases, so I'm not going to go all doom and gloom.


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TheGoofyGE3K wrote:
Leyren wrote:
Amaranthine Witch wrote:
Wizards can get the ability to counterspell... that sounds like counterspelling is going to be a wizard class feat, which would be pretty meh. What about the other casters?
I assume they that every caster can counterspell, but have to declare a ready action or something like that.
Doubtful. That's how old counterspelling worked, and no one does it that way. That said, the arcanist, one of the most recently released arcane casters, has a rather powerful, semi-useful version of counterspelling that uses a immediate action, a point from your arcane reservoir, and a spell slot higher than (and eventually equal to) the spell, and it was far more viable/fun/no one gets mad at you for wasting your action if it fails/doesnt pay off. Was a cool system, made my GM crazy lol

I've got an Arcanist in my adaptation of War of the Burning Sky who uses this. It's been an interesting time for me, as some of the primary antagonist also specialize in counterspelling. (all the counter-counterspelling!)

I do hope other classes retain the ability to counterspell, though I would also assume that it was still as a readied action.


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Fuzzypaws wrote:

Monk: I'm hoping that the base monk chassis doesn't have much weird random supernatural crap going on and is a more focused brawler. Its main mystical aspect should be ki. You would then choose disciplines or paths to follow, one of which would be the more traditional weirdo empty-body tongue-of-the-sun-and-moon monk.

The monk should be able to be as good with staves, rope-and-chain weapons, and so on as with the unarmed strike, if that's what a player wants. I want my Jackie Chan monk, I want ninja turtles who can kick ass with nunchaku.

Speaking of, drop the alignment requirement. It's never made sense. "Discipline" does not mean "Lawful" or all high level characters who didn't achieve massive power by pure accident would be Lawful.

And giving them access to more diverse weapons. I get that a lot of people want to play an Eastern-style monk, but why can't we play a monk who uses Western weapons (in a setting where Western weapons are most predominant at that!? Would a longsword really be that much more devastating a weapon than a temple sword or urumi?


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I too was a little taken aback by the feats they mentioned in the blog post. Not because I dislike them, but because the fear feat seems so much like a replacement to Bravery and Cornugan Smash has always been available to everyone. If they had said either class had those feats available to them I wouldn't have batted an eye, but both seem like feats that the other would also have access to.

That said, we don't know the whole picture here. Maybe those feats are available to both and that hasn't been properly conveyed to us yet. I'm fine with them calling all Talents/Arcana/Discoveries/Rage Powers the same thing. My hope is that we don't end up with a large swath of what were once thought to be universal feats drifting over into being locked behind classes.


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Some of those feats do sound pretty slick, Quick Reversal in particular.

I really do wish we'd get a bit more information on how feats are tied to classes though. Can a rogue pick up Sudden Charge? Can a Paladin gain Shield Warden? Due you have to multiclass to do so or is there a feat that lets you gain other class's feats?


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the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh wrote:
Pronunciation guides in Bestiaries so I can be confident of not mangling the names of creatures from real-world traditions I'm not familiar with.

Punctuation guides in everything. When playing a game that borrows from all manner of written fantasy and real-world mythology you can't expect people to grasp the varied pronunciations.

Same for the names of outsiders and dragons. Over the years I have come to haaaaaate having to run encounters with some of the unique enemies. It can spoil the immersion when No one can figure out what the creature is named.

Personally, I would love if the bestiary entries also had a chart/sidebar for knowledge checks. It'd make for a faster reference for the DM and serve to help establish how known different creatures are, without tying it in to CR. Because really, why are older dragons harder to ID than younger ones (And if you decide that they're less common in your setting, you can easily bump the DCs by a bit)


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Stack wrote:

Light armor, medium armor, heavy armor, fluff as necessary. Minor cost differences that become meaningless after level 2 do not justify a large table of pointless bloat.

Or scrap medium armor entirely.

And please remove redundant weapons. The gladius is not sufficiently distinct from the short sword, for example. Better yet, have weapons defined by their properties and give some examples of real world types for use as fluff descriptions.

And merge the monk weapons into the regular weapons, so we don't have to have all these weapons for monks to hunt down.


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Atalius wrote:
thanks guys. What is the difference between the two if say you weren't a shaman.

A spell that appears on multiple lists is typically treated as being of the type that your class casts. A wizard casting Detect Magic casts it as Arcane, a Druid casts it as Divine, and a Psychic casts it as Psychic.


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Irnk, Dead-Eye's Prodigal wrote:

That's...

problematic, at best.

How do they figure to keep them corralled? To keep them from rising up to escape, or rebel/avenge themselves? Given that Sandpoint has no history of slave taking/keeping, they really don't have the infrastructure necessary for this to be much more than an exercise in futility. Has the Deverin character even spoken with his/her family about if they are willing to back this endeavor?

As to efficiency...

No, it really isn't. Basically, they have just turned the Goblins into slaves & the People of Sandpoint into slave holders, without determining beforehand if either party was okay with the idea. The only way to efficiently keep slaves, because that is what the Goblins now are (however the PC's may have convinced themselves otherwise), is by using tactics that can only be described as evil at best.

Honestly, the most efficient efforts for the PC's to pursue would be to either execute them now & take the potential alignment hit of killing helpless prisoners, or try to scare the crap out of them & let them go in the hopes that they will warn the other Goblins in the area that Sandpoint's defenders are too badass to fight against.

Of course, these are all just my opinions.

Wholeheartedly agreed.

All I could think of when I read the OP was "My god, that sounds worse than herding cats!" Because cats won't try to to farming implements into weapons, then burn everything around them down to the ground.

And if they figure out how to get their hands on the beer, all bets are completely off.


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I vote for either Blight or Scourge. Both mean roughly the same thing and convey a sense of dread. Alternatively, I believe Pernicies means ruin or bane in latin.


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I would think that a Lore Warden would have a decent shot at being a swashbuckler, just a more intelligent one. You're almost certainly playing a LW as a Dex/Int build. You can disarm, trip, and dirty fight to your heart's content while possibly working towards going into Duelist.

Skills are still a bit of an issue, but if you were oh, say, a human with 14 Int and were willing to put your favored class points into skills you would be getting 6/level with an additional 2 for Int based skills.


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StreamOfTheSky wrote:
Yeah, Frank...I do not like nor agree with that interpretation, it's just silly and potions already suck.

Except he is correct by the written rules. Sadly, he isn't actually interpreting anything just reading the rules off. This makes certain potions rather painful/dreadful to accumulate for emergencies.


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james maissen wrote:
Tom S 820 wrote:

Volley attack mean one attack role.

No, volley attack means that they happen all at once.

Unlike, say, a full attack with a bow, you do not decide targets as you go. For example you would declare 2 rays on target 1, and 1 ray on target 2.

If the 'first' ray on target 1 drops them, the 'second' ray cannot be moved over to target 2.. nor does the 'second' ray suffer from target 1 now being prone.. as 'first' and 'second' hit all at the same time.

That's a volley.

Likewise using TK to launch 15 huge size +5 GMW'd bolts at a target 1500ft away is a volley.

It has nothing to do with number of attack rolls, but rather the nature of the attacks. They are all simultaneous. That's a volley.

Frankly I'd have given the trickster sneak attack on everyone in the fireball.. but they don't even do that.

-James

It seems the Trickster does get SA on all targets of the fireball though. The trick here though is that people don't seem to be differentiating between spells that require an attack roll and spells that don't. The Surprise Spells feature is unique in that it lets you SA on something you really shouldn't and it can't really be used in comparison with general SA rules, which function differently.


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The thing about vague Animal Companions like "Bird" is that they are worded like that so you can pick a variety of creatures for it to be. (Eagle, Osprey, Falcon, Vulture, etc). It is by no mean a stretch to assume that this is what the designer meant by this description.

In a homebrew game I could see someone arguing for it, but in PFS the "falconer must take the bird animal companion" line is pretty cut and dry.


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Anti-paladins: In too many cases they just don't work well with others, not with that alignment restriction and class flavor.

Gunslingers and Firearm Archetypes: Depends on the campaign, I allowed them in my Carrion Crown (with modified treasure) and homebrew, but I am not allowing them in Rise of the Runelords. (I feel the average touch AC may be a bit on the low end in this AP what with the giants and all. If I'm wrong I don't think my players will really be angry/care)

I take no issue with summoners since my players who do attempt them are good at thinking ahead of their turn and keeping track of their stuff. If a player attempts a dump-stated Synthesist I will come down on them like a ton of rectangular building things. Otherwise I am fine with a Synthesist.

Ever since I made the mistake of allowing the Vow of Poverty Warmage I had to deal with in my old War of the Burning Sky campaign I've edged more towards making judgement calls on a case by case basis. I don't like across the board bans and make it clear to my players that ludicrous cheese will be dealt with, but that I'm not opposed to powerful characters.

I don't have any major problems with Ninja or Samurai, I just expect my players to not play them as explicitly oriental. Ninja's are just a different sort of Rogue and Samurai are a less team oriented Cavalier. It's not like an NPC will go up to one of the PCs and ask him his class only to be mystified as to what a Samurai is or be confused as to the meaning of Iaijutsu Strike. He is simply a warrior who excels at a specialized form of combat.


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I like to use is this to explain the difference between Stunned and Helpless to new players:

"A monk's stunning fist is basically you being punched in the stomach. If you fail the fortitude save then you've had the wind knocked out of you or some-such (knocked upside the head, groin-shotted, sudden muscle spasm, etc.). It's the difference between needing to catch your breath/gather your wits and no longer being able to move in any way/shape/form."

So far in it gets the point across pretty well with my players and makes it easy to remember.