Tristram's page

I would love to see an occult book (mesmerist has a special place in my heart). Wilderness too, if the Shifter could have something more akin to the adaptive shifter archetype from 1e.

I do like WatersLethe's idea about progressing up more potent races (maybe a feat chain that can be taken across both class and race?)

I like Chess Pwn's way of spelling out the magnitudes quickly, which gives more versatility. For example, as Alchemic_Genius suggested, it can adapt to the Fear spell, too.

Then we add Andrew Riebe's suggestion of putting it in a saving throw line for added clarity.

The results look clean and clear.

FEAR Spell 1
Emotion, Enchantment, Fear, Mental
Casting [[A]] Somatic Casting, [[A]] Verbal Casting
Range 30 feet; Targets one creature
Duration by frightened magnitude
Saving Throw Will (S frightened 1 CS unaffected F frightened 2 CF frightened 3 and fleeing for 1 round)
You plant fear in the target. It becomes frightened and possibly fleeing with magnitude based on its Will save.

FIREBALL Spell 3
Evocation, Fire
Casting [[A]] Somatic Casting, [[A]] Verbal Casting
Range 500 feet; Area 20-foot burst
Saving Throw Reflex (S half damage CS unaffected F full damage CF double damage)
A burst of fire explodes, dealing 6d6 fire damage. Creatures in the area take a multiple of that damage based on their Reflex saves.
Heightened (+1) The damage increases by 2d6.

The keyword "basic" is not necessary and would only add to the jargon to memorize.

I really like this look. It saves space and makes it slightly faster to gather in what the spell does.

Jason S wrote:

Draco18s wrote:

Essentially what CommanderCoyler is saying is, you've made race selection look like this:

Pick:

• Fixed Boost, Free Boost, Fixed Flaw
  
• Free Boost, Free Boost, Free Flaw

What would literally everyone choose?
The second one.

We already have that with humans picking both boosts and having no flaws.

Which is why they're balanced by having one less boost. Again, the flaw doesn't matter, you're not going to play an ancestry with a flaw to your class's main stat(s) unless something else makes up for it i.e. feats

Or flavor. Those players do exist.

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.

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?

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

Im not sure 2 ancestry feats is the answer since some options would be too powerful (humans with both general training and natural ambition seems strong), but what about geting 1 ancestry feat and 1 heritage feat at level 1. That way hybrid races can have their cake and eat them while ancestries like dwarves do t have to choose between being resistant to poison and having a clan dagger.

I'm torn between this and a floating feat choice for the second feat. On one hand you can tweak the races more without too much option-paralysis, on the other you can open up for more varied starts (And Archetypes that change classes from the get-go).

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.

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)

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!

*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.

BryonD wrote:

I would daresay that nobody is playing PF1 and finding it “excessively” complex.

Then you're missing the whole E6 group, and the whole "core only" group and a lot of other people who DO think that it is excessively complex.

These groups are attempting to simplify PF1 to make it playable for their games.

Just because it's not excessively complex for you does not mean that there aren't large swaths of the player base who aren't like you.

When you try to speak for the entire playerbase, you're certain to be wrong in a lot of ways.

And all the players who need other players to guide them through the myriad actions and situational modifiers that need tracking.

Some reductions in complexity (but not choices) could go a long ways for getting people on board. The small weapons has definitely been a turn-off for myself and others in my group, as small martial characters find themselves never finding size appropriate equipment.

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!

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.

Now TBH now I think my variant Champion could work just as well as Oath based class.. with Oaths of Protection, Oaths of Retribution and Oaths of... Evangelisation?... or smth not necessarily gods per se.

Now I think we could strip those quasi-divine forces from Champion, healing, spells, rather give him... conviction bonuses - like divine grace is no longer divine gift, but just matter of conviction of champion adding to his defences.

In my 5e homebrew that's how I approached the issue. Instead of Paladins, I have Zealots, who possess a dice pool that they can use to add on to various d20 rolls. The creed they adhere to offers them additional abilities. Contemplation, Heralding, Strength, and Magic are the creeds I created.

I've always felt like Pathfinder Paladins could be approached the same way, with either creeds/oaths that suit difference deities or different sets of abilities that suit the alignments. I lean towards the former since it gives the Paladins more variety in how they feel and act.

Aaaaand back to the topic.

I like some of the ideas floating around for making the "half" ancestries into more of a subsystem for mixing ancestries. And if it means room for more ancestries, even better! My hope is that if it could be put on a single spread (the one for the half-elf), the half-orc spread could be used on orcs. That would also save space on ancestry feats. I'm not sure if having orcs or kobolds be core would help stymie the outrage we're seeing, but I'd certainly be up for more options!

And it could be used to make the plane-touched races incorporate more of their material plane heritage. Efreeti-blooded Gnomes? Aasimar Elves? Tiefling Goblins? Dragon-blooded Orcs? Ancestry feats and/or a template system could handle the load AND offer meaningful choices down the road by allowing players to touch on both sides of their heritage. Alternatively, allow the mixed-ancestry ones to pick another race to touch on, so your Aaasimar could gain feats from Halflings.

Something that is unclear to me which has been hinted at above:

What if multiple creatures stacked the same "regular success" special condition on someone, such as stun or frightened? How would PF2 adjudicate that?

It looked like frightened had a number representing how badly you were frightened, as opposed to shaken, frightened, panicked, cowering. So I would expect that they simply increase the degree. No clue on stunned though, it may not have any stacking or extending. Maybe they'll touch on conditions soon, such as near the Monk blog?

Edit: Elfteiroh beat me to it, and is better informed.

I'm all in with the folks hoping it plays out with your (base) ancestry offering some basic abilities (Ability Scores, Hardiness, etc) and that the cultural aspects are detached and available as feats.

I have no qualms about any parts of this. A Skill Feat at each level is spectacular. Though I am hoping Reactive Pursuit is also available to Barbarians and perhaps Monks.

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.

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?

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.

Here are the Top 5, by class:

[Stuff]

RANGER
-----------
Skirmisher 12
Freeboter 7
Sword-Devil 5
Trapper 5
Dandy 3 (Tie)
Guide 3 (Tie)
Urban Ranger 3 (Tie)

[More Stuff]

I find it rather amusing how many people want their rangers to have options that don't involve spellcasting (I am among those people). Isn't that 3 out of top 4?

Please keep the bonuses from wildshape being a buff to your own stats. This keeps forms that are used as character theming viable. If I play a wolf based druid, I want to always be able to turn into a wolf and have that be beneficial.

Additionally, consider unlocking size templates on different animals. If I want to play a wolf shaman, let me use the small or tiny templates to turn into a wolf puppy, or the giant template for an exceptionally large direwolf. Keep the gradual unlocking of greater and smaller sizes of wildshapes consistent with character theme.

Be clear on communication rules. If as a wildshaped druid, i'm not allowed to speak human languages, can I speak with other animals of my kind? This would be a fair trade off.

Be more lenient toward abilities offered from some specific wild shapes. Set a DC based off your class level or what have you for them if you have to. Just don't be afraid to let your druids do the cool thing the monster does instead of just the basic things the monster does.

Perhaps a totem style approach then? Similar to what the Shifter has, but with well more options to pick from.

I've always been a fan of song and speech bards, it always seemed less immersive and realistic (as realistic as you can bee in a fantasy setting) to cart around instruments while exploring a cave or sneaking into a lair.

And +1 for the military commander bit. We could definitely use a better archetype for military commander bards.

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?

3.5 had a druid variant where your wild shape consisted of vague themes that you could role/roll with. You started with a predatory form with certain attacks and bonuses, but get to fluff it from there. Eventually you get an Aerial form, a Ferocious form (Tiger, Bear, etc), Forest Avenger (Treant, Shambling Mound, Etc), and Elemental form.

It was nice in that you only needed to track a small number of stats, but it could have been improved with a small pool pool of floating ability options like pick one/two additional abilities from a list when you take on a form.

One does not hack with Katanas. One slices. Never hack. That's what European swords are for.

(That's the short, abridged and nicer version of a very long, earnest speech my old Sensei would have given you only for implicating Katanas are used the same way)

So closer to a saber, correct? (yes, I know sabers are designed for attacking from a mount)

I would be for bit of all camps. Fold some of the really egregious weapons into being their western equivalent, give a more easily obtained route for cultural weapon proficiencies, and give monks and other eastern themed classes/archetypes options for eastern and/or western weapons. There's no reason a monk born and raised in the Inner Sea shouldn't be able to use longswords instead of a temple swords.

Something that no one seems to mention is Vic Wertz comments. If you understand how proficiencies worth with weapons, then you understand how they work with armor.

To me this implies that your AC is first determined by the type of armor worn, then adjusted by rank, then adjusted by level, then adjusted by ability modifier.

Assuming everything is the same between two rogues other than level, I would surmise a 10th level rogue’s AC would be 9 points higher than one that is first level.

That caught my eye as well, I'm assuming that it means AC will be 10+Training Modifier+Armor Modifier+Dex Modifier.

I'm reaaaaaaaally hoping something involving proficiency allows arcane casters to cast in heavier armors too. (By locking it behind proficiency, as opposed to arbitrary armor heaviness/spell failure)

1) Sword Devil - I have a soft spot for spell-less options for classes that are partial classes.

2) Sohei - It's a nice change of pace being able to have an armored monk.

3) Lore Warden (The old one) - Lightly armored fighter with brains, couldn't get enough of it.

4) Scaled Fist - It's just cool.

5) The non-existent archetypes that lets sorcerers and wizards cast in heavy armors. A guy can dream!

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)

Zolanoteph wrote:

Lord_Franklin wrote:

Bardic Buffs could easily be represented with the Aid Another line of thought, and get some Class Feats that let Aid Another power up for them, allowing them to inspire more from others as levels increase. (If that is how these so called "Class Feats" work?)

Feels an easy way to make them naturally a "Support" class, without relying on magic to do that, nor another mechanic.

This, or something like it. There's got to be a less campy replacement, or at least alternative to singing, dancing, etc.

World Warcraft actually introduced a bard class: AS AN APRIL FOOLS JOKE. A game that has talking panda men and Jersey shore goblins decided that a guy playing music in battle was a bridge too far. Let that sink in.

I don't think anyone is questioning the need for a character class that plays music, is skilly and charming. And that's fine for OUT OF COMBAT class features. But let's face it, if the bard was a recent Pathfinder invention with no historical ties to DnD a lot of people would gawk and laugh at the idea and suggest that Paizo has gone off the deep end.

Bard was created in AD&D 1st edition...

It's important to note that he didn't say it was a recent invention, he said 'if' it were a recent invention.

That aside, I would be in favor of some base bard options that allow them to be less artsy. I'm a big fan of VMC bards, and I know several other players who really like the bardic buffs, knowledges, and skills, but hate the song and dance themes.

If that's how they're simplifying the system, I'm all for it. That could definitely clean up space in future books.

My only concern is how they categorize the feats; Would monks just get access to monk feats? Will feats have multiple categories for ease of communication (Fighter and Monk, or Barbarian and Fighter for example)?

This is all wild speculation of course.

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.

Woo! The Unchained action economy was one of my favorite parts of the book! So happy to see that coming to PF2.

Quote:

The fighter, for example, has a feat that you can select called Sudden Charge, which costs two actions but lets you to move twice your speed and attack once, allowing fighters to get right into the fray!

This is super scary. This goes back to what I was saying in the other thread about what I love about Pathfinder--the way I can combine different classes, archetypes, etc. to get the abilities that I want. It will kind of suck if my character can't do cool thing X because they don't have the right class. Yes, there are boundaries within reason, but they have to be thematically justified.

If they do tie many of these feats into classes during the playtest, perhaps we can nudge them into 'typed' feats like we have now, with fighters, paladins, rogues, and such qualifying for martial feats.

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.

Well, they admitted what I had suspected: Starfinder was an issue. It occupied too much attention and this product suffered as a result. I would prefer that never happen again. Thank you for the frankness of your answer, Mr. Bulmahn.

I like the changes and the only other thing I would change is to give the Shifter TWO aspects upon creation at 1st level. To be stuck with one until 5th level was the only real issue I had with the class.

This and a bit more variety to the aspects, and pushing forwards when you gain some of the later choices could all help alleviate the lack of versatility while still keeping with the class's design. For example: 2 at 1st, and an additional at 5th and every 4 thereafter. A small tweak, but a helpful one. It would also help to mitigate the sting of some minor aspects being negated by some of the most common items in the game.

Just throwing this out there. If you re-arrange the Shifter class table like the monk's with the recent changes kept in mind we get something that looks like this: Shifter Table.

There's something like 8 to 10 dead levels depending on how you look at it. If you were to include druid wild shape options then that drops to about 6 dead levels. That's enough to throw in bonus feats and some 1 to 2 line abilities like maybe the ability to wild shape faster or some immunities. If you're feeling adventurous expand the wild shape options at higher levels.

That chart is really handy to reference, definitely saving a copy of that.

While the added flexibility is great, it seems weird that after a short period other wild shaping classes will be able to stay shifted for longer portions of the day. It probably won't come into play very often, as I can only recall a couple instances in campaigns I've been in where the duration issue would have mattered, but it seems odd none-the-less.

Will anything be done to fix how the class interacts with some of the Wild Shape feats? They allow you to pick them, yet do nothing since the Shifter doesn't count as a Druid for determining how the feat functions (level stacking, etc.).

The big concern is still the narrow number of forms that they are limited too. I've got a DM looking to run Ruins of Azlant in the near future and the lack of any solid aquatic species is a huge letdown. Tossing around ideas with fellow players brought up a list of common/popular animals that were passed up: Apes, Dragons, and Elephants were popular, not to mention Sharks and Crocodiles. Dragons in particular seems like a missed opportunity for an exciting archetype right out the gate.

The idea we tossed around is changing the aspects from form specific, to a broader category with several options in each. Frog could change to water/aquatic, Tiger to predator (add in a few more cats), Bull to might (add in some more burly animals), falcon to wind/soaring (get some more bird forms of various sizes), etc, etc. Yes, it would take more reading, but it'd still be more streamlined than selecting spells.

Swift/immediate actions have their own action economy, and standard/move actions have theirs, and never the twain shall meet.

I feel like this is inscribed upon tablets stored in a vault at Paizo, along with others like "Dexterity shall not be easily used to deal damage."

Joking aside, allowing Swift actions to be bumped to other action types allows for quite a bit of play in the rules. There are quite a few abilities that use swift actions to activate and I can only imagine the horrors that would befall us under the current rules system if you could swap them to move/standard. It's an intentional restriction put in place to prevent multiple abilities from being used near-simultaneously, even if it does have the disadvantage of breaking immersion.

Is it just me or are Jason and Owen really against any sort of rule that lets you swap your Dex modifier with the Strength modifier for damage no matter how limiting the rule might be? Anywho, thanks for the detail Erik. Wish you could have given us more but we'll take what we can get.

It's not just you, there's a big push against allowing characters to focus solely on Dex.

Reading these blogs about building the archetype piqued my interest enough to convince me to subscribe. I'm looking forward to receiving my copy!

That is, the GM does not have grounds to say that a character with the panicked condition wets their pants, denounces their god, or attacks their friends in a wild attempt to escape.

One could make the argument that wetting one's pants as the result of a failed save would be allowed. It is mostly flavorful in description, with no real in game consequences and fits the bodily reaction to severe shock and terror.

Full disclosure, this has happened in a campaign I ran. The PC in question was cowering in two overlapping fear auras, with a natural 1 on one of the saves. There was general agreement at the table that it was fair description of how someone would be emotionally overwhelmed.

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.

I agree that the list could stand to be improved, though I imagine that the reason it's "*" only is because it seems very straight forward and text minimal.

If there's concern that it might tread on the Alchemist's toes too much to give level equivalent access, maybe lvl-X or some minimum level requirements could be tossed out there.

Baxter is fantastic, as is the late lamented Iain Banks.

I was not aware that he had passed away, this saddens me greatly.

His novels are great though, they involve (or are adjacent to) a post-scarcity space empire (for lack of a better term) known as the Culture. The Culture is essentially an anarchy guided along by minds, which are unfathomably intelligent AI. The Use of Weapons, Player of Games, and Matter are probably my favorites.

Mark Seifter wrote:

Malwing wrote:

I am sore about the lack of secondary AC, unless the complaints are ignoring some kind of ki AC ability that nobody is talking about. Its no sweat off my nose (using third party options that I allow at the same time I can get a monk to 36 touch AC before magic items.) but I think one of the biggest problems with the monk is the dependance on Dex AND Wis for AC rather than being able to rely on Wis and some kind of kung-fu guard or deflection kata.

Furious defense (+4 AC for one ki thing), while it does require you to pick it as a ki power, is super better than before since it's an immediate action, so you can use it only when you need it, which is a great conserver on ki as well as immediate/swifts. That said, monks I've seen, especially at high levels, have tended to have extremely high ACs overall even before Unchained.

Do they still get barkskin as a ki ability? Without it an unarmed monk's AC will be weak since, as their neck slot is filled with the AoMF, they can't get an AoNA.

They can still take the old ki abilities.

Is that meant to say "head-butt" or does the Unchained Monk get an ability to set his nether cheeks on fire and hit people with them?

Because that WOULD be awesome.

They do get the ability to engulf their unarmed strikes in energy, so nothing is stopping you from igniting your butt and going to town with it.

Aside from your DM that is.

A couple of years back I successfully played the sole LE character in a homebrew campaign of my friend's devising.

His alignment didn't really come up for the first several sessions, until the evil vizier we had unmasked and barely subdued refused to hand over any useful information relevant to why he was doing what he was doing (blackmailing the duke into enslaving kobolds for the purpose of excavating old caves).

Here's where my character steps up and proposes torturing him for information. My DM had forgotten about my alignment, he even asked to see my sheet to confirm it. It turned out that most of the team was some sort of neutral, so only one person objected. We did eventually get information out of him pertaining to his motives, though not much. (It seems that my DM actually hadn't been prepared with reasons, the vizier was just intended to segue us to the grander plot via a few vague clues we had previously missed)

The character was always loyal to his comrades and was from then on respected for his willingness to do whatever it took to get things done. He blended well with a party of driven, pragmatic individuals.

The idea is that someone could take it as a base class or take it as what would essentially be a PrC that stacked with some of their abilities.

Geb and Nex, I want these so bad.

And I may have screwed up a link in the original post, if it doesn't work for you guys, try this: Amalgam Magus