Twiggies's page

PFS is so I can socialise with people with similar hobbies (ttrpgs). I play with and socialise to find people I like and then whisk them away to home games (or vice versa and I get whisked away).

Interesting how it sorta slightly encourages playing non Elves with the bonus for non humans and non elves in Greengold

Shoutout to the Demon Mother's Mask item in pf1e

That was an item I could point to when people asked about weird items.

Someone posted this on Reddit.

I like the top voted comment in the thread noting that someone had a dev response saying a mistake on some map locations was intentional, and only when they pushed back did it get errata noted.

Anyway I concur with some in this thread that it still feels off and wrong and I'll be houseruling that away, especially with how well Rogues are already doing the extra buff just feels bizarre.

Tridus wrote:

Trip.H wrote:

Staves becoming Invested items will change every single user of that item group that's already at max investiture.

This actually kinda sucks, as my PCs take archetype casting and use low level staves for utility. One little Alchemist is super fond of her Librarian's staff, and twice during APs the ability to take 10 min to use it's ability to quickly store a mini-library in the thing to read later has been super useful.

After this change, the decision to use/invest in a staff is as big a cost as for any of the evergreen passive items, like boots for +5 move spd.

I cannot afford to sacrifice some meaningful combat potential for the sake of a flavor item like the Librarian Staff. Sucks, but it is what it is.

Whoa I missed that! I don't think thats actually what it means though. The rule that was changed itself doesn't mention staves or give them the Invested trait.

The part that mentions staves is an explanation, which itself seems wrong because nothing in the rules after this change says that staves are invested that I can find. Is there some other part I'm missing?

Quote:

Page 219: The text on investing items didn’t allow for items that are invested but not worn, such as staves. Change the first two sentences to “Certain magic items convey their magical benefits only when invested using the Invest an Item activity, tying them to the PC’s inner potential. These items have the invested trait, and most are worn items.”

Hmm... Nothing in this says something like, "Staves gain the Invested trait" or "When you prepare a staff, you also invest..."

I think staves were used as an example because the writer misremembered and though they had the trait. I do not belive the intent was to add the invested trait to staves, or they would have been more explicit.

I brought it up to a friend, who thinks that this is actually a little addition made because there is One Singular Staff that has the Invested trait and it's meant to be a change to cover specifically items like that which are invested but not worn.

Maybe the better wording should have been "such as some staves". Errata errata?

In D&D 5e we had campaign that was run over like 4-5 years ish (it was filled in with taking breaks for other people to take over GMing to run other campaigns to help the long campaign GM avoid burnout) where we got all the way to level 20. Though we got speed ran past the last 5 levels because the GM was eager to wrap the story up and conclude it since we were all feeling burnt out and the GM especially didn't want to GM for D&D anymore lol. That's the only game I can say was completed.

For Pathfinder 1e, I've gone up to level 17-ish in a super busted, third party galore, living world for aroundabout 2-3 years or so before I quit due to frustrations. Honestly it was a horrible experience and I would not recommend a Living World server to anyone except to socialise to find some folk they might like to spirit away to home games. Do nooot invest yourself too deep into them xD

Hi, I use rituals in my game, this means that to some guy I'm qualified to express I don't like this change or see the point right? Yeah, I don't like this change or see the point for it. I dislike having to do more houserules.

Lubaiko?! Seriously? Why?? What's she got going on worse than a bunch of other deities? Are we gonna start a race to flag every deity to see which ones are mildly troublesome? Because if so, phew, we've got a lot to work through.

Man, I really like her... What the heck.

I’m one of those folks who was a huge fan of the old oracle, and not so much the new one.
I remember flipping through the classes when I was first looking into the system, and when I scrolled through the Oracle mysteries, and saw the curses, the vivid descriptions of what each curse does to you, how going up in the stage makes the curse worse, but also turns it into a boon of sorts, I thought, holy cow that’s AWESOME. Instantly set my mind racing.

I was SOO exicted for the Remaster. I kept on talking to my friends about it.
What I was hoping for from the Remaster was:
1. Some free bonus spells matching the Mystery, ie Flames to get some fire spells, Tempest to get some storm spells.
2. Doing something to handle the awkward floating focus point that you can’t access after the first time you use a focus point for the day, unless you archetyped into something else to get a non-oracle focus spell.
3. Maybe some general rebalancing for some of the curses boons/banes since some curses were notably rougher than others.
4. Other little touch ups.

I was not expecting.. well, this. I was getting a bad gut feeling on the first Oracle preview where they talked about hoisting the cool curse boon-bane stuff out, doubting the "oh but you can totally get the old gameplay back!". My gut feeling was right. :(

I loved the old oracle generally, my GM gave me a free fire spell per rank and I was completely set and happy with my flames oracle. The new one just… Doesn’t provide me with that some WOWW that the old one did. It doesn’t feel as interesting. And I wasn’t even a Battle oracle who lost my whole concept. The flames curse is just less inspiring overall for me. The curses as a whole are less inspiring, and the neat unique benefits to each just kinda being relegated to more generic feats are... Yeah the class is generally stronger now, but I just don’t feel like it at all hits what it used to do for me. If I wanted generically good I’d play a sorcerer, and in fact I’d probably be better off just running a Sorcerer and just roleplaying some soft curse effects for funsies.

This reminds me of when they changed the Hunting Horn in Monster Hunter Rise. As a Hunting Horn main in the game, it felt kinda bad. They focused on trying to make the weapon more generically appealing, instead of improving the weapon for those who loved it and its unique playstyle. Yes, the new version was much easier to play, and statistically did get used more (but was still bottom of the barrel for usage), but it lost a lot of its charm when you didn’t have to think about your songs anymore and didn’t have any weight behind it and a lot of people that played it also went back to other weapons since being that it became a more generic style, why not play the other weapons that do that.
Thankfully they changed it back in Monster Hunter Wilds to its old playstyle. Unfortunately I’m not holding out hope for that happening here. Much like I changed to Hammer during MH Rise when they removed the appeal of the Hunting Horn to appease people who didn't play it, my Oracle will be dumped too. And that’s a damn shame.

Pf2e's big selling point for me was its focus on balance and not going completely whacko with it like DnD or Pf1e. I would never have jumped into gming if it wasn't for what it advertised itself to do. I quit pf1e entirely because it was a headache for someone who did not play ttrpgs to power game (I have video games for that lol)

When people compare this to what DnD and 1e allowed, yes, it is MUCH smaller, but pf2e has smaller numbers and a more clear hook with its balance, and with this and some of the more pushed seeming options in newer books Im getting more hesitant. Snowball effect or whatever. If I run or even play a more tactical focused ttrpg it'd be nice for me if it stayed balanced without me having to mark down and note off which options are obviously much stronger than the others. I trusted the system that everytime one of my players asks about an Uncommon/Rare option, I can judge it specifically for what the tags are stated for, "does this fit the setting we're playing in" and "will this cause issues in our story and challenges if they can just teleport around". I do not want to have to then math out if this would just bust out other stuff or make the other characters who didn't take the same thing look notably weaker in comparison and regret not doing it too and thus also cause a situation where every char is suddenly [x] feature.

Tldr pls errata pls don't use Rare or Uncommon tag as an excuse that it's fine to make notably more powerful stuff

The issue of the less popular ancestries not having enough interesting feats or even just decent feats has made it that I've often been floating around in my head the idea of just, what would happen if for a campaign you decided to completely slash the ancestry requirements, for ancestry feats. With the obvious caveat of "what's physically possible" ie if one is about improving your bite attacks, or training your [insert unique body part here] to do something, don't take it if your ancestry doesn't have a bite attack or said unique body part.

The obvious answer is everyone would just take the juicy bits, like human's extra general feat or elves' initiative bonus and speed bonus and then probably some outliers somewhere where the race its attached to actually deeply matters (like maybe the dwarves armour speed reduction thing). At the same time, it might make some of my players feel less incentivized to go those races purely for those and just play whatever funny little dude they want without worry, or maybe even not take the 'boring but generically powerful feat' because they have that 'niche feat that fits their character perfectly that otherwise wasn't available'. Dunno.

Looking at it now I suppose a potential issue may be that the casters get Legendary proficiency at level 19. Which if they have that + the potency runes it pushes them ahead of the other martials? I am running an AP that goes up to level 20 so I have to think about that. Having the lower proficiency + potency runes would still be better than legendary proficiency without runes so I just say that this also overwrites the Legendary Prof for spell attacks in the future? I can see that being awkward to explain to the players but that's a future me problem.

Here's what I ended up putting together. The bolded text is to really emphasise the new staff houserule and it will be on every staff/coda if the players wants to use a different staff (the bard will get a similar coda though I'm further considering houseruling to be 1 handed/just make it another staff idk). I think this would be a nice way to introduce the houserule than awkwardly bringing up at the start of the next session "by the way you're buffed yaaaaay~", instead I have the employer hand them this as a reward and it all slots in together. Hopefully.

Thanks for all the input folks!

I'll definitely consider a built in progression too. I actually would have probably liked to have run ABP in the first place but I decided to run things by the book. It might confuse them though idk.

More ideally I have to see how easy/hard it is to add to Foundry. I am a coder though so hopefully not too hard.

The team just finished off a boss, they didn't pick up the clues to go to the next areas for the next set of enemies, which means they're going back to their employer who will then send them off again. But getting a reward in shiny new custom +1 staff items will definitely make them happy to work for her again. Just need to think of what spells to put on it that is both thematic for the employer, and the players would hopefully like. Maybe I'll let them customise it after the fact. And of course an equally exciting item for the martials.

And I totally forgot about Spellhearts. I'm gonna have to read ahead of the AP some more and see where I can fit in some of those. I've put in a few scrolls before in their loot of some fun niche spells but they might've proved to have been too niche because the players wanted to sell them instead and then promptly forgot about it lol.

Thanks for that. Yup, my plan is to base it off the scaling of regular martials. We don't have a Fighter or Gunslinger in the group anyhow.

You're right, Shadow Signet is probably unecessary if I give them this.
At risk of sounding a bit of a noob, what items are caster items? Staves, wands and scrolls yeah? So far they've shown little interest in those in the first place. Maybe I need to sprinkle more of those items into this module [hence my idea that the potency runes could be etched on a staff instead of a weapon, give the bard the same option but with the instrument version of the staves].

So one of my players has brought up complaints after literally every single session of how awful it feels to play as a caster, particularly when it comes to using spells that have a spell attack roll, given his current awkward staggered slower proficiency from the other martials and the lack of a potency rune. Given we're now about a year into this, it's clearly not something he's grown into the concept of. In fact, it's only gotten worse as levels have gone up and the ugly slow scaling rears its ugly head.

I'm already planning on dropping in a free shadow signet into his loot to try to ease that but I always felt like Shadow Signet was a bandaid myself. I'm wondering if I should alternatively or also drop in a house rule to just, make his spell attacks be just as accurate as martials attack rolls. Like as if they had the same scaling and potency runes [possibly give him a customiseable staff that he can etch potency runes into or something].

Has anyone done this? Has it particularly affected things to become too good for casters? Did it make things feel better for the casters, make the martials unhappy, or not that much of a difference?

I'm not interested in the usual caster weak bad etc arguments. I've read those back and forth hundred page long threads before. I'm in the camp casters are fine. I only just want to know what people think or have experience of how this might affect stuff, I want to make sure he has fun but not muck up any particular balance I didn't take note of. His caster gripes is something I've discussed with him a lot, but he still brings this up as a massive pain point that's hindering his enjoyment. (and honestly, I agree that the spell attack specifically is an annoyance and a grievance I also had to the point I felt very stupid having to advise him not to use a whole subset of spells available in the game).

I'd like to give all of the Monk weapons where the Monk trait 'costs' an actual useful trait/other feature, to give them something else to make them on par with other weapons. It just seems so unnecessary, especially when there's a Monk trait weapon that doesnt have the trait cost power budget and it didnt break anything. Like, it makes weapon using monks feel more finicky considering its already a feat cost, and it makes it so those weapons are just automatically worse for anyone liking the style of weapon for a non Monk character.

Wait, so the super awesome curses which are what drew me and Im sure others to the oracle, like oracles big defining feature, are being taken away and locked behind feats? We have to spend feats, things we usually want to buff ourselves, to bring back the curse/kiss gameplay, which is not necessarily a buff?

Mmmmmrgh.

I was happy that they're finally giving free spells so that flames oracle doesn't feel sad. But I think this might be worse. :( obviously tooo late in the prints to change it now.

The Elementalist primarily seems to be there for players who want to play a blaster in a class that otherwise has less blaster support than they want. For example a Flames Oracle can use the Elementalist Archetype to swap out the Divine list for spells that support their playstyle more explicitly.

Unfortunately, Oracles can't pick up Elementalist, since the prerequisite is to cast from the Arcane or Primal list..........

I played a Flames oracle and got frustrated at the lack of fire spells to fit the playstyle and theme and did try to look at Elementalist lol xd. [in the end my GM gave me the Oracles+ homebrew thing where they gave the Oracles bonus spells fitting their theme]

His issue was D mainly coming in with the PF meta mindset instead of just making a character out of the air he wanted to play and just be like "this is what I'm playing."

I'm someone who literally can't just make a character out of the air unless the suns and stars align on the 5th constellation when the year is a prime number so I really feel for D here. This has indeed been a point where my friends have gotten frustrated with me because forcing me to make something up from nothing will have me spending the full 2 hours of session zero to only at best maybe getting a class name written down and even then still be unsure. [As a side, I've also taken to randomisers as well, which my friends had further frowned upon thinking I could not get attached to a character that was 'given' to me. They're wrong.]

To help with this, I often enjoy filling in what I think the team might need help with, maybe with ties to another character, otherwise I resort to recreating an old character I played in the past. The former isn't a meta thing at all, at least not what I imagine the negative connotations of meta being attached here is. I think of it as like... I like playing support characters. To me, supporting can also mean filling in what I think might help the group (a meaty frontliner, an aoe damage dealer, a buffer, a healer, a face..). I just find it fun. And I'm the opposite of a super meta following person, whatever I make often tends to be 'sub meta' because sure, I'll make an aoe damage dealer to help round out the group. I'm still gonna pump charisma up despite that not being a key ability score and give him the Dandy archetype because it's fun.

Not to be another 'play another system' person, but maybe have a gander at Pathwarden? It uses Pathfinder 2e as its base with ORC, so familiar things like action points are there, though that's about when the similarities end. It does have levels so a level 1 mook is not as likely to hit a level 5 char, but its classless and the hp scaling is less intense (so if that level 1 mook crits, the lvl 5 character is still going to feel it). Though I'll admit being unsure if it'll fulfil the gritty since, levels are still there--I haven't played/run it myself yet. (The author is pretty open to answering questions though if you wanted to check)

There's lots of games that can fulfil that fantasy grittiness out there, this was just the only other one game that came to mind that has a PF2e style action point system for combat (aside DC20 but I have no idea how that one plays at higher levels either, and it's also still in development whereas Pathwarden is done).

Otherwise perhaps capping levels and instead rewarding extra feats as players progress "past" the capped level would be the idea (like QuidEst mentioned). That's the kind of ruleset I enjoyed most in PF1e. Maybe add Proficiency without Level on top.

Dirty Trick? That was a fun maneuver in PF1e, even if it got a little insane with a lenient GM haha.

Good to hear that you'll get panache on a failure. Trying to get successes on guys of equal or higher level demolished a lot of enjoyment.

Laughing Shadow Magus would be my thought for a magus.

A Monk even could be an idea, maybe? Monastic weaponry to use a sword, they're speedy, Ki Moves..

I'll admit not knowing much about Alucard tho--Considering when I think of him I think of the old old old old old pixel video game which was pretty limited lol. I haven't really played a game or consumed any other media of it since I was like. 5. So I'm just throwing ideas at a dart board (and missing).

Also a bit confused on this:

I could see Champion as well but since there are no non good champions yet, I'd hold off on that class.

There are non good champions. Tyrant, Desecrator, and Antipaladin.

Magus sucks from the pov of a pf1e player, cuz it's not mad busted lol/is more restricted.

A sorcerer would be my first thought. The Undead bloodline. Or maybe even go for something more 'charming' like fey with some refluffing?

The Moldersoul Ardande lineage gets a 2 action Decompose ability which destroys natural difficult terrain... and does 1d6 damage to creatures with the plant or wood trait.

And only 1d6 damage. Forever. For the rest of its life.

I feel like there was meant to be scaling that was forgotten here. Even just a bit, even if the damage is secondary it still feels kinda bad.

Thematically? Dragon. Dragons are awesome. Unfortunately, having a base bloodline power in Claws that don't even let you use your casting stat and thus feels more like a thing for martials to archetype into feels really bad lol.

Ah Roll20 must be panicking now that WoTC is making their own VTT (and tried/is trying to force people to use only it).

Twiggies wrote:

For anyone that has the PDF, does this have the same quality compression issues that Rage of Elements has which makes the images real low quality?

Nope, the opposite, it's very very big. xD 300ish MB

Oh that is EXCELLENT to know. Thank you!!

For anyone that has the PDF, does this have the same quality compression issues that Rage of Elements has which makes the images real low quality?

Twiggies wrote:

I am not looking forward to experiencing that again. :x

You won't.

I will see when it arrives.

Oh dear (again), I just saw the line about adding mythic...

It was such a nightmare in PF1e, definitely one of the worst experiences I've had was mythic games (and the community that followed it). I am not looking forward to experiencing that again. :x

Oh dear, the commander is the 4e lazylord?

Can confirm, part of what drew me to the Oracle was their curses. I enjoy having to work around cool flavourful disadvantages like that. I definitely did notice that some looked much harder to work around than others.

The only game I played an Oracle in was in Strength of Thousands. Being able to pick up an archetype that uses focus points made that floating unusable focus point issue sting less, but it was still noticeable.

I've said it before but what I hope for most is for Flames and Tempest oracles to get easier access to the spells that their curse literally works around. Having to feat tax to have spells that fits the curse is pret-ty lame. (my GM was nice and gave me the Oracles+ 3pp where I just got an extra spell that fit my curse which instantly made it better)

Ruzza wrote:

It's important to note that using Healer's Tools still requires at least 1 free hand.

Yes it's part of changes to makes the use of Wearing Toolkits more clear.

Hmm if would've been nice if they noted that wearing the toolkit meant you can use it with 1 hand like the old healers tools said. It feels more confusing now having to dig down into the references for toolkits instead of just looking at what's on Battle Medicine. It doesn't even clearly state "You can use it with one hand if you're wearing it". In fact that lack of that of specificity makes me muse that people can easily read it as Battle Medicine being a feature that overrides needing hands since holding a toolkit only takes one hand now anyway?

I guess looking again the change to healer tools is that you can choose to 2 hand it. If you wanted to for some reason. Since at its base its 1 or 2 hands even without wearing it.

I feel like this reminds me of a thread back in 2020 where the original battle medicine text had no prereq text at all I think and there were only implications of how Healers Tools were used. The difference being at that time there was no previous version where it was clear a hand was needed.

So I predict many more players being confused about it like my friend was.

A fellow player made me realise today when they were trying to use Battle Medicine while wielding a 2 handed sword that in the updated Player Core, they removed the part of the Battle Medicine requirements that you need to have a hand free.

Requirements You are holding healer's tools, or you are wearing them and have a hand free

Requirements You’re holding or wearing a healer’s toolkit (page 288)

Do you guys think that was intentional? Definitely feels like it isn't, but figured I'd make a thread. Just to bring it to attention in case that needs an errata or not.

Aww I wanted her to die.

Geb and Nex.......... I don't know how to articulate it well into text. Especially not without being caught and dragged into prison if I ever step foot in either countries for heresy.

Yall ever seen those pirate nemesis comics? When I read the snippet for Geb and how he got so depressed that he offed himself because Nex backed out of their war all I could think of was that their relationship was like this and it's been festering in my head ever since.

Dandy + Anything.

Dandy is just so fun and chock full of flavour.

Interesting choice of Athamaru feat to preview given how incredibly niche it is. Would've liked to see something more applicable in most games ^^" It's cute though

I mean, it's not like the core 20 couldn't use some shaking up. I see... four gods still on the in danger list that I know aren't going to be dieing since they feature prominently in Starfinder. Maybe five if you add Torag.

Starfinder canon has no bearing on whether a god will live or die. If a god exists in Starfinder, it does not guarantee that they will live. If a god doesn't exist in Starfinder, it doesn't mean they are among a "short list" of gods who could die.

Twiggies wrote:

Thank you for this guide, flipping through it now to see what I could do with a kineticist because I theoretically want a little fire guy for my kineticist so bad but it's so hard to justify over other more immediately useful things.

Also the images are so cute! Could you source the artists in them please? I'd love to see some of their work and also it's nice to credit artists.

You can find them all in the art credit section! Most of it is just art of my PCs by my friend, GrimmTindalos, but you'll be able to find everyone at the bottom there.

Ahah! Thank you.

Thank you for this guide, flipping through it now to see what I could do with a kineticist because I theoretically want a little fire guy for my kineticist so bad but it's so hard to justify over other more immediately useful things.

Also the images are so cute! Could you source the artists in them please? I'd love to see some of their work and also it's nice to credit artists.

Thank you all for the feedback, yeah it doing nothing sounds right RAW.

Paolingou wrote:

Aenigma wrote:

Golarion is not a planet of hats, unlike most other planets, whose inhabitants all share a single defining characteristic.

If that is true, then what is earth defining characteristic?

Guns, Sentient Evil Mustard Gas Clouds, and Possessed Tanks.

And Rasputin.

If an Eidolon gets the Doomed condition, does the Summoner get affected/die?

The Eidolon and Summoner share HP pools. However the Doomed condition, which only adds Dying stacks and doesn't cut HP. I know that Eidolon are their own entity for taking conditions, but due to the nature of the hp sharing the Eidolon never goes into a Dying state as far as I know, only the Summoner. So I'm unsure if the Eidolon getting Doomed affects the Summoner, or if it does effectively nothing.

Picoperi made Urxhel smile once from a joke, and Urxhel has been trying to kill him ever since. Fantastic.

I want to be a witch so i can bring my dog back in the form of a familiar

omg they said 'aiya'

instant auntie voice in my head.

I'm so pleased about the "Match the Mythology" point! Everything being just based on pop culture stuff and not being any accurate to the actual sources has always been such a pet peeve of mine so I'm so so so excited to see this going forward!

The vibes are immense.

Seriously, that's why I play and love my flames oracle. The second I saw the description of the curses I was like "ohhh I gotta play this."

Working around the curse can be awkward largely because of the extra 'unused' focus point that's stuck there after the first time you use a focus spell (so archetyping into something that gives another focus spell is nice), but so far I don't feel myself to be weak. In fact the flames oracle focus spell has come in clutch many many times and I often pull it out in most fights unless the situation is unsuited for it. Helps that I have an alchemist in the party who is very happy to lob an alchemist's fire after I set up the aura and get into position (I took the toughness feat so I'm a bit better suited to being in the front area too)

Granted, the flames oracle curse also isn't too bad, but also that's because my GM gave me some extra fire spells to add to my list because dear goodness lord is being required to take a feat to have more than 1 spell that interacts with your curse a massive bummer (shoutout to the tempest oracles who have it even worse off) (Really hoping they fix this in the remaster <3 )